
aass_l 1. 

Book^£5i£ 



THE 



WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 



JOHN FISKE 







BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1892 






%^ 



Copyright, 1889, 
Bt JOHN FISKR 

All rights reserved. 

•vlA 1 1908 



EIGHTH EDITION. 



ITie Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Slectrotyped and Printed hj H. 0. Houghton & Company. 



CONTENTS. 



C iAP. PAGE 

I. Introduction 1 

II. The Colonies in 1750 4 

III. The French Wars, and the First Plan of 

Union 26 

IV. The Stamp Act, and the Revenue Laws . 39 
V. The Crisis . . *" . ' 78 

VI. The Struggle for the Centre . . . 104 

VII. The French Alliance 144 

VIII. Birth of the Nation 182 



Note. — The maps are used by permission of, and by ar- 
rangement with, Messrs. Ginn & Company. 



Z^(^^ 



PKEFACE. 



This little book does not contain the substance 
of the lectures on the American Revolution which 
I have delivered in so many parts of the United 
States since 1883. Those lectures, when com- 
pleted and published, will make quite a detailed 
narrative ; this book is but a sketch. It is hoped 
that it may prove useful to the higher classes in 
schools, as well as to teachers. When I was a 
boy I should have been glad to get hold of a brief 
account of the War for Independence that would 
have suggested answers to some of the questions 
that used to vex me. Was the conduct of the 
British government, in driving the Americans into 
rebellion, merely wanton aggression, or was it not 
rather a bungling attempt to solve a political 
problem which reaUy needed to be solved ? Why 
were New Jersey and the Hudson river so impor- 
tant ? Why did the British armies make South 
Carolina their chief objective point after New 



vi PREFACE. 

York ? Or how did Cornwallis happen to be at 
Yorktown when Washington made such a long leap 
and pounced upon him there ? And so on. Such 
questions the old-fashioned text-books not only 
did not try to answer, they did not even recognize 
their existence. As to the large histories, they 
of course include so many details that it requires 
maturity of judgment to discriminate between the 
facts that are cardinal and those that are merely 
incidental. When I give lectures to schoolboys 
and schoolgirls, I observe that a reference to 
causes and effects always seems to heighten the 
interest of the story. I therefore offer them this 
little book, not as a rival but as an aid to the 
ordinary text-book. I am aware that a narrative 
so condensed must necessarily suffer from the 
omission of many picturesque and striking de- 
tails. The world is so made that one often has to 
lose a little in one direction in order to gain some- 
thing in another. This book is an experiment. 
If it seems to answer its purpose, I may follow it 
with others, treating other portions of American 
history in similar fashion. 
Cambridge, February 11, 1889. 



THE WAE OF INDEPENDEITOE, 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Since the year 1875 we have witnessed, in 
many parts of the United States, public proces- 
sions, meetings, and speeches in commemoration 
of the hundredth anniversary of some important 
event in the course of our struggle for national 
independence. This series of centennial celebra- 
tions, which has been of great value in stimulat- 
ing American patriotism and awakening through- 
out the country a keen interest in American 
history, will naturally come to an end in 1889. 
The close of President Cleveland's term of office 
marks the close of the first century of the gov- 
ernment under which we live, which dates from 
the inauguration of President Washington on the 
balcony of the Federal building in Wall street, 
New York, on the 30th of April, 1789. It was 
on that memorable day that the American Rev- 
olution may be said to have been completed. 
The Declaration of Independence in 1776 de- 
tached the American people from the supreme 



2 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

government to which they had hitherto owed 
allegiance, and it was not until Washington's in- 
auguration in 1789 that the supreme government 
to which we owe allegiance to-day was actually 
put in operation. The period of thirteen years 
included between these two dates was strictly a 
revolutionary period, during which it was more or 
less doubtful where the supreme authority over 
the United States belonged. First, it took the 
fighting and the diplomacy of the revolutionary 
war to decide that this supreme authority be- 
longed in the United States themselves, and not 
in the government of Great Britain ; and then 
after the war was ended, more than five years of 
sore distress and anxious discussion had elapsed 
before the American people succeeded in setting 
up a new government that was strong enough to 
make itseK obeyed at home and respected abroad. 
It is the story of this revolutionary period, 
ending in 1789, that we have here to relate in its 
principal outlines. When we stand upon the 
crest of a lofty hill and look about in all direc- 
tions over the landscape, we can often detect re- 
lations between distant points which we had not 
before thought of together. While we tarried in 
the lowland, we could see blue peaks rising here 
and there against the sky, and follow babbling 
brooks hither and thither through the forest. It 
was more homelike down there than on the hill- 
top, for in each gnarled tree, in every moss-grown 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

boulder, in every wayside flower, we had a friend 
that was near to us ; but the general bearings 
of things may well have escaped our notice. In 
climbing to our lonely vantage-ground, while the 
familiar scenes fade from sight, there are gradu- 
ally unfolded to us those connections between crag 
and meadow and stream that make the life and 
meaning of the whole. We learn the " lay of the 
land," and become, in a humble way, geographers. 
So in the history of men and nations, while we 
remain immersed in the study of personal inci- 
dents and details, as what such a statesman said 
or how many men were killed in such a battle, we 
may quite fail, to understand what it was all about, 
and we shall be sure often to misjudge men's 
characters and estimate wrongly the importance 
of many events. For this reason we cannot clearly 
see the meaning of the history of our own times. 
The facts are too near us ; we are down among 
them, like the man who could not see the forest 
because there were so many trees. But when we 
look back over a long interval of years, we can 
survey distant events and personages like points 
in a vast landscape and begin to discern the mean- 
ing of it all. In this way we come to see that 
history is full of lessons for us. Very few things 
have happened in past ages with which our pres- 
ent welfare is not in one way or another concerned. 
Few things have happened in any age more in- 
teresting or more important than the American 
Revolution. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE COLONIES IN 1750. 

It is always difficult in history to mark the 
beginning and end of a period. Events keep 
rushing on and do not pause to be divided into 
chapters ; or, in other words, in the history which 
really takes place, a new chapter is always begin- 
ning long before the old one is ended. The di- 
visions we make when we try to describe it are 
merely marks that we make for our own conven- 
ience. In telling the story of the American Revo- 
lution we must stop somewhere, and the inaugu- 
ration of President Washington is a very proper 
place. We must also begin somewhere, but it is 
quite clear that it will not do to begin with the 
Declaration of Independence in July, 1776, or 
even with the midnight ride of Paul Revere in 
April, 1775. For if we ask what caused that 
"hurry of hoofs in a village street," and what 
brought together those five-and-fifty statesmen at 
Philadelphia, we are not simply led back to the 
Boston Tea-Party, and stiU further to the Stamp 
Act, but we find it necessary to refer to events 
that happened more than a century before the 
Revolution can properly be said to have begun. 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 6 

Indeed, if we were going to take a very wide 
view of the situation, and try to point out its re- 
lations to the general history of mankind, we 
should have to go back many hundreds of years 
and not only cross the ocean to the England of 
King Alfred, but keep on still further to the 
ancient market-places of Rome and Athens, and 
even to the pyramids of Egypt ; and in all this 
long journey through the ages we should not be 
merely gratifying an idle curiosity, but at every 
step of the way could gather sound practical les- 
sons, useful in helping us to vote intelligently at 
the next election for mayor of the city in which 
we live or for president of the United States. 

We are not now, however, about to start on any 
such long journey. It is a much nearer and 
narrower view of the American Revolution that 
we wish to get. There are many points from 
which we might start, but we must at any rate 
choose a point several years earlier than the 
Declaration of Independence. People are very 
apt to leave out of sight the "good old colony 
times " and speak of our country as scarcely 
more than a hundred years old. Sometimes we 
hear the presidency of George Washington spoken 
of as part of " early American history ; '* but we 
ought not to forget that when Washington was 
born the commonwealth of Virginia was already 
one hundred and twenty-five years old. The first 
governor of Massachusetts was born three cen- 



6 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 

turies ago, in 1588, the year of the Spanish Ar- 
mada. Suppose we take the period of 282 years 
between the English settlement of Virginia and 
the inauguration of President Benjamin Harrison, 
and divide it in the middle. That gives us the 
The half-way J^^^ 1T48 as the half-way station in the 
AmlJkiin history of the American people. There 
history. were just as many years of continuous 

American history before 1748 as there have been 
since that date. That year was famous for the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which put an end to a 
war between England and France that had lasted 
five years. That war had been waged in America 
as well as in Europe, and American troops had 
played a brilliant part in it. There was now a 
brief lull, soon to be followed by another and 
greater war between the two mighty rivals, and it 
was in the course of this latter war that some of 
the questions were raised which presently led to 
the American Revolution. Let us take the oc- 
casion of this lull in the storm to look over the 
American world and see what were the circum- 
stances likely to lead to the tlirowing off of the 
British government by the thirteen colonies, and 
to their union under a federal government of 
their own making. 

In the middle of the eighteenth century there 
were four New England colonies. Massachusetts 
extended her sway over Maine, and the Green 
Mountain territorv was an uninhabited wilder- 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 7 

ness, to which New York and New Hampshire 
alike laid claim. The four commonwealths of 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
Rhode Island had all been -in existence, under 
one form or another, for more than a century. 
The men who were in the prime of life there in 
1750 were the great-grandsons and great-great- 
grandsons of the men who crossed the ocean be- 
tween 1620 and 1640 and settled New England. 
Scarcely two men in a hundred were of other than 
English blood. About one in a hundred could 
say that his family came from Scotland or the 
north of Ireland ; one in five hundred may have 
been the grandchild of a Huguenot, -njejo^j 
Upon religious and political questions ^njjjj^* 
these people thought very much alike. ^^^' 
Extreme poverty was ahnost unknown, and there 
were but few who could not read and write. As 
a rule every head of a family owned the house in 
which he lived and the land which supported him. 
There were no cities ; and from Boston, which 
was a town with 16,000 inhabitants, down to the 
smallest settlement in the White Mountains, the 
government was carried on by town-meetings at 
which almost any grown-up man could be present 
and speak and vote. Except upon the sea-coast 
nearly all the people lived upon farms ; but all 
along the coast were many who lived by fishing 
and by building ships, and in the towns dwelt 
many merchants grown rich by foreign trade. In 



8 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

those days Massachusetts was the richest of the 
thirteen colonies, and had a larger population 
than any other except Virginia. Connecticut was 
then more populous than New York ; and when 
the four New England commonwealths acted to- 
gether — as was likely to be the case in time of 
danger — they formed the strongest military power 
on the American continent. 

Among what we now call southern states there 
were two that in 1750 were more than a hundred 
years old. These were Virginia and Maryland. 
The people of these commonwealths, like those of 
New England, had lived together in America long 
enough to become distinctively Americans. Both 
New Englander and Virginian had had time to 
forget their family relationships with the kindred 
Virginia and ^^ft behind SO long ago in England; 
Maryland, though there wcrc many who did not 
forget it, and in our time scholars have by re- 
search recovered many of the links that had been 
lost from memory. The white people of Virginia 
were as purely English as those of Connecticut or 
Massachusetts. But society in Virginia was very 
different from society in New England. The 
wealth of Virginia consisted chiefly of tobacco, 
which was raised by negro slaves. People lived 
far apart from each other on great plantations, 
usually situated near the navigable streams of 
which that country has so many. Most of the 
great planters had easy access to private wharves, 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 9 

where their crops could be loaded on ships and 
sent directly to England in exchange for all sorts 
of goods. Accordingly it was but seldom that 
towns grew up as centres of trade. Each planta- 
tion was a kind of little world in itself. There 
were no town-meetings, as the smallest political 
division was the division into counties ; but there 
were county-meetings quite vigorous with politi- 
cal life. Of the leading county families a great 
many were descended from able and distinguished 
Cavaliers or King's-men who had come over 
from England during the ascendency of Oliver 
Cromwell. Skill in the management of public 
affairs was hereditary in such families, and dur- 
ing our revolutionary period Virginia produced 
more great leaders than any of the other colonies. 
There were yet two other American common- 
wealths that in 1750 were more than a hundred 
years old. These were New York and little Dela- 
ware, which for some time was a kind of append- 
age, first to New York, afterward to Pennsyl- 
vania. But there was one important respect in 
which these two colonies were different alike from 
New England and from Virginia. Their popu- 
lation was far from bein^ purely Eno^- 

New York 

lish. Delaware had been first settled by and Deia- 
Swedes, New York by Dutchmen ; and 
the latter colony had drawn its settlers from al- 
most every part of western and central Europe. 
A man might travel from Penobscot bay to the 



10 ' THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Harlem river without hearing a syllable in any 
other tongue than English ; but in crossing Man- 
hattan island he could listen, if he chose, to more 
than a dozen languages. There was almost as 
much diversity in opinions about religious and 
political matters as there was in the languages in 
which they were expressed. New York was an 
English community in so far as it had been for 
more than eighty years under an English govern- 
ment, but hardly in any other sense. Accordingly 
we shall find New York in the revolutionary pe- 
riod less prompt and decided in action than Massa- 
chusetts and Virginia. In population New York 
ranked only seventh among the thirteen colonies ; 
but in its geographical position it was the most 
important of all. It was important commercially 
because the Mohawk and Hudson rivers formed a 
direct avenue for the fur-trade from the region of 
the great lakes to the finest harbour on all the 
Atlantic coast. In a military sense it was impor- 
tant for two reasons ; firsts because the Mohawk 
valley was the home of the most powerful confed- 
eracy of Indians on the continent, the steady al- 
lies of the English and deadly foes of the French ; 
secondly^ because the centre of the French power 
was at Montreal and Quebec, and from those 
points the route by which the English colonies 
could be most easily invaded was formed by Lake 
Champlain and the Hudson river. New York 
was completely interposed between New England 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 11 

and the rest of the English colonies, so that an 
enemy holding possession of it would virtually cut 
the Atlantic sea-board in two. For these reasons 
the political action of New York was of most crit- 
ical importance. 

Of the other colonies in 1750, the two Car- 
olinas and New Jersey were rather more than 
eighty years old, while Pennsylvania had been 
settled scarcely seventy years. But the growth 
of these younger colonies had been rapid, espe- 
cially in the case of Pennsylvania and North Car- 
olina, which in populousness ranked third and 
fourth among the thirteen. This rapid ThetwoCar- 
increase was mainly due to a large im- Ge^gia"*^ 
migration from Europe kept up during fnTpe^Si- 
the first haK of the eighteenth century, ""^"^^ 
so that a large proportion of the people had either 
been born in Europe, or were the children of peo- 
ple born in Europe. In 1750 these colonies had 
not had time enough to become so intensely 
American as Virginia and the New England col- 
onies. In Georgia, which had been settled only 
seventeen years, people had had barely time to 
get used to this new home on the wild frontier. 

The population of these younger colonies was 
very much mixed. In South Carolina, as in New 
York, probably less than half were English. In 
both Carolinas there were a great many Hugue- 
nots from France, and immigrants from Germany 
and Scotland and the north of Ireland were stiU 



12 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 

pouring in. Pennsylvania liad many Germans 
and Irish, and settlers from other parts of Eu- 
rope, besides its English Quakers. With all this 
diversity of race there was a great diversity of 
opinions about political questions, as about other 
matters. 

We are now beginning to see why it was that 

Massachusetts and Virginia took the lead in 

bringing on the revolutionary war. Not only 

were these two the largest colonies, but 

Why Massa- ^ . 

chusettsand their pcople had become much more 

Virginia 

took the thoroughly welded together in their 
thoughts and habits and associations 
than was as yet possible with the people of the 
younger colonies. When the revolutionary war 
came, there were very few Tories in the New Eng- 
land colonies and very few in Virginia ; but there 
were a great many in New York and Pennsylvania 
and the two CaroHnas, so that the action of these 
commonwealths was often slow and undecided, and 
sometimes there was bitter and bloody fighting 
between men of opposite opinions, especially in 
New York and South Carolina. 

If we look at the governments of the thirteen 
colonies in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
we shall observe some interesting facts. All the 
colonies had legislative assemblies elected by the 
people, and these assemblies levied the taxes and 
made the laws. So far as the legislatures were 
concerned, therefore, aU the colonies governed 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 13 

themselves. But with regard to the executive 
department of the government, there were very- 
important differences. Only two of the colonies, 
Connecticut and Rhode Island, had governors 
elected by the people. These two colonies were 
completely self-governing. In almost everything 
but name they were independent of Great Brit- 
ain, and this was so true that at the time of 
the revolutionary war they did not need 

. . « 1 The two re- 

to make any new constitutions tor them- pubHcs ; 

•^ , , Connecticut 

selves, but continued to live on under and Rhode 

Island. 

their old charters for many years, — 
Connecticut until 1818, Rhode Island until 1843. 
Before the revolution these two colonies had com- 
paratively few direct grievances to complain of 
at the hands of Great Britain ; but as they were 
next neighbours to Massachusetts and closely 
connected with its history, they were likely to 
sympathize promptly with the kind of grievances 
by which Massachusetts was disturbed. 

Three of the colonies, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
and Maryland, had a peculiar kind of govern- 
ment, known ?i^ proprietary government. The proprie- 

rrM • ••11 • • Ti 1 ^*^y govem- 

Iheir territories had originally been ments;Pena. 

, sylvania, 

s^ranted by the crown to a person known Delaware, 

° *' ^ ^ and Mary- 

as the Lord Proprietary, and the lord- land. 
proprietorship descended from father to son like 
a kingdom. In Maryland it was the Calvert 
family that reigned for six generations as lords 
proprietary. Pennsylvania and Delaware had 



14 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

each its own separate legislature, but over both 
colonies reigned the same lord proprietary, who 
was a member of the Penn family. These colo- 
nies were thus like Uttle hereditary monarchies, 
and they had but few direct dealings with the 
British government. For them the lords proprie- 
tary stood in the place of the king, and appointed 
the governors. In Maryland this system ran 
smoothly. In Pennsylvania there was a good deal 
of dissatisfaction, but it generally assumed the 
form of a wish to get rid of the lords proprietary 
and have the governors appointed by the king ; 
for as this was something they had not tried they 
were not prepared to appreciate its evils. 

In the other eight colonies — New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, 
the two Carolinas, and Georgia — the governors 
The crown wcrc appointed by the king, and were 
theTroyaT*^ commouly kuowu as " royal governors." 
governors. Xhcy wcrc somctimcs natives of the 
colonies over which they were appointed, as Dud- 
ley and Hutchinson of Massachusetts, and others ; 
but were more often sent over from England. 
Some of them, as Pownall of Massachusetts and 
Spotswood of Virginia, were men of marked abil- 
ity. Some were honest gentlemen, w^ho felt a real 
interest in the welfare of the people they came to 
help govern ; some were unprincipled adventurers, 
who came to make money by fair means or foul. 
Their position was one of much dignity, and they 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 15 

behaved themselves like lesser kings. What 
with their crimson velvets and fine laces and 
stately coaches, they made much more of a show 
than any president of the United States would 
think of making to-day. They had no fixed terms 
of office, but remained at their posts as long as 
the king, or the king's colonial secretary, saw fit 
to keep them there. 

Now it was generally true of the royal govern- 
ors that, whether they were natives of America or 
sent over from England, and whether they were 
good men or bad, they were very apt to make 
themselves disliked by the people, and they were 
almost always quarrelling with their legislative 
assemblies. Questions were always coming up 
about which the governor and the legislature 
could not agree, because the legislature repre- 
sented the views of the people who had chosen it, 
while the governor represented his own views or 
the views which prevailed three thousand miles 
away among the king's ministers, who very often 
knew little about America and cared less. One 
of these disputed questions related to the gov- 
ernor's salary. It was natural that the ^j^^ question 
governor should wish to have a salary as to salaries. 
of fixed amount, so that he might know from 
year to year what he was going to receive. But 
the people were afraid that if this were to be 
done the governor might become too independent. 
They preferred that the legislature should each 



16 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

year make a grant of money sucli as it should 
deem suitable for tlie governor's expenses, and 
this sum it might increase or diminish according 
to its own good pleasure. This would keep the 
governor properly subservient to the legislature. 
Before 1750 there had been much bitter wrangling 
over this question in several of the colonies, and 
the governors had one after another been obliged 
to submit, though with very ill grace. 

Sometimes the thoughts of the royal governors 
and their friends went beyond this immediate 
question. Since the legislatures were so froward 
and so niggardly, what an admirable plan it would 
be to have the governors paid out of the royal 
treasury and thus made comparatively independ- 
ent of the legislatures ! The judges, too, who 
were quite poorly paid, might fare much better if 
remunerated by the crown, and the same might be 
said of some other public officers. But if the 
British government were to undertake to pay the 
salaries of its officials in America, it must raise a 
revenue for the purpose ; and it would naturally 
raise such a revenue by levying taxes in America 
rather than in England. People in England felt 
that they were already taxed as heavily as they 
could bear, in order to pay the expenses of their 
own government. They could not be expected to 
submit to further taxation for the sake of paying 
the expenses of governing the American colonies. 
If further taxes were to be laid for such a pur- 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 17 

pose, they must in fairness be laid upon Amer- 
icans, not upon Englishmen in the old country. 

Such was the view which people in England 
would naturally be expected to take, and such was 
the view which they generally did take. But 
there was another side to the question which was 
very clearly seen by most people in America. If 
the royal governors were to be paid by the crown 
and thus made independent of their legislatures, 
there would be danger of their becoming petty 
tyrants and interfering in many ways with the 
liberties of the people. Still greater would be 
the danger if the judges were to be paid by the 
crown, for then they would feel themselves re- 
sponsible to the king or to the royal governor, 
rather than to their fellow-citizens ; and it would 
be easy for the governors, by appointing corrupt 
men as judges, to prevent the proper adminis- 
tration of justice by the courts, and thus to make 
men's lives and property insecure. Most Amer- 
icans in 1750 felt this danger very keenly. They 
had not forgotten how, in the times of their grand- 
fathers, two of the noblest of Englislnnen, Lord 
William Russell and Colonel Algernon Sidney, 
had been murdered by the iniquitous sentence of 
time-serving judges. They had not forgotten the 
ruffian George Jeffreys and his " bloody assizes " 
of 1685. They well remembered how their kins- 
men in England had driven into exile the Stuart 
family of kings, who were even yet, in 1745, 



18 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

making efforts to recover their lost throne. They 
remembered how the beginnings of New England 
had been made by stout-hearted men who could 
not endure the tyranny of these same Stuarts; 
and they knew well that one of the worst of the 
evils upon which Stuart tyranny had fattened had 
been the corruption of the courts of justice. The 
Americans believed with some reason, that even 
now, in the middle of the eighteenth century, the 
administration of justice in their own common- 
wealths was decidedly better than in Great Britain ; 
and they had no mind to have it disturbed. 

But worse than all, if the expenses of govern- 
ing America were to be paid by taxes levied upon 
Americans and collected from them by king or 
parliament or any power whatsoever residing in 
Great Britain, then the inhabitants of the thirteen 
American colonies would at once cease to be free 
people. A free country is one in which the gov- 
ernment cannot take away people's money, in the 
shape of taxes, except for strictly pub- 

" No taxation "^ i . i i n 

without rep- he purposes and with the consent of the 

resentation." 

people themselves, as expressed by some 
body of representatives whom the people have 
chosen. If people's money can be taken from 
them without their consent, no matter how small 
the amount, even if it be less than one dollar out 
out of every thousand, then they are not politi- 
cally free. They do not govern, but the j)ower 
that thus takes their money without their consent 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 19 

is the power that governs ; and there is nothing 
to prevent such a power from using the money 
thus obtained to strengthen itseK until it can 
trample upon people's rights in every direction, 
and rob them of their homes and lives as well as 
of their money. If the British government could 
tax the Americans without their consent, it might 
use the money for supporting a British army in 
America, and such an army might be employed in 
intimidating the legislatures, in dispersing town- 
meetings, in destroying newspaper-offices, or in 
other acts of tyranny. 

The Americans in the middle of the eighteenth 
century well understood that the princi- 
ple of "no taxation without representa^ fundamental 
tion" is the fundamental principle of English 

T 1 • • liberty. 

tree government. It was the principle 
for which their forefathers had contended as^ain 
and again in England, and upon which the noble 
edifice of English liberty had been raised and 
consolidated since the grand struggle between 
king and barons in the thirteenth century. It had 
passed into a tradition, both in England and in 
America, that in order to prevent the crown from 
becoming despotic, it was necessary that it should 
only wield such revenues as the representatives of 
the people might be pleased to grant it. In Eng- 
land the body which represented the people was 
the House of Commons, in each of the American 
colonies it was the colonial legislature ; and in 



20 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

dealing with the royal governors, the legislatures 
acted upon the same general principles as the 
House of Commons in dealing with the king. 

It was not until some time after 1750 that any- 
grand assault was made upon the principle of 
" no taxation without representation," but the fre- 
quent disputes with the royal governors were such 
as to keep people from losing sight of this princi- 
ple, and to make them sensitive about acts that 
might lead to violations of it. In the particular 
disputes the governors were sometimes clearly 
right and the people wrong. One of the princi- 
pal objects, as we shall presently see, for 

Sometimes i • i i i 

the royal which the govcmors wanted money, was 

governors . . c i <• • 

were in the to maintain troops for defence against 

right, as to , 

the particu- the French and the Indians ; and the 

lar question. 

legislatures were apt to be short-sighted 
and unreasonably stingy about such matters. 
Again, the people were sometimes seized with a 
silly craze for " paper money " and " wild-cat 
banks " — devices for making money out of noth- 
ing — and sometimes the governors were sensible 
enough to oppose such delusions but not alto- 
gether sensible in their manner of doing it. Thus 
in 1740 there was fierce excitement in Massachu- 
setts over a quarrel between the governor and the 
legislature about the famous "silver bank" and 
"land bank." These institutions were a public 
nuisance and deserved to be suppressed, but the 
governor was obliged to appeal to parliament in 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 21 

order to succeed in doing it. This led many peo- 
ple to ask, " What business has a parliament sit- 
ting the other side of the ocean to be making laws 
for us ? " and the grumbling was loud and bitter 
enough to show that this was a very dangerous 
question to raise. 

It was in the eight colonies which had royal 
governors that troubles of a revolutionary char- 
acter were more likely to arise than in the other 
five, but there were special reasons, besides those 
already mentioned, why Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia should prove more refractory than 

„ -r» 1 1 Bitter mem- 

any oi the others. Both these great ories ; in 

,,,,,. . Virginia. 

commonwealths had bitter memories. 
Things had happened in both which might serve 
as a warning, and which some of the old men still 
living in 1750 could distinctly remember. In 
Virginia the misgovernment of the royal gov- 
ernor Sir William Berkeley had led in 1675 to 
the famous rebellion headed by Nathaniel Bacon, 
and this rebellion had been suppressed with much 
harshness. Many leading citizens had been sent 
to the gallows and their estates had been confis- 
cated. In Massachusetts, though there were no 
such scenes of cruelty to remember, the grievance 
was much more deep-seated and enduring. 

Massachusetts had not been originally a royal 
province, with its governors appointed by the 
king. At first it had been a republic, such as 
Connecticut and Rhode Island now were, with 



22 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

governors chosen by the people. From its foun- 
dation in 1629 down to 1684 the commonwealth 
of Massachusetts had managed its own affairs at 
And in Mas- ^^^ ^^^ good pleasure. Practicallj it 
sachusetts. j^^^ -^^^^ ^^^ ^^^j self-govemiug but 

almost independent. That was because affairs in 
England were in such confusion ^^hat until after 
1660 comparatively little attention was paid to 
what was going on in America, and the liberties 
of Massachusetts prospered through the neglect 
of what was then called the " home government." 
After Charles II. came to the throne in 1660 he 
began to interfere with the affairs of Massachu- 
setts, and so the very first generation of men that 
had been born on the soil of that commonwealth 
were engaged in a long struggle against the Brit- 
ish king for the right of managing their own af- 
fairs. After more than twenty years of this 
struggle, which by 1675 had come to be quite bit- 
ter, the charter of Massachusetts was anmdled in 
1684 and its free government was for the moment 
destroyed. Presently a viceroy was sent over 
from England, to govern Massachusetts (as well 
as several other northern colonies) despotically. 
This viceroy. Sir Edmund Andros, seems to have 
been a fairly weU meaning man. He was not es- 
pecially harsh or cruel, but his rule was a despot- 
ism, because he was not responsible to the people 
for what he did, but only to the king. In point 
of fact the two-and-a-half years of his adminis- 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 23 

tration were characterized by arbitrary arrests 
and by interference with private property and 
with the freedom of the press. It was so vexar 
tious that early in 1689, taking advantage of the 
Revolution then going on in England, the people 
of Boston rose in rebellion, seized Andros and 
threw him into jail, and set up for themselves a 
provisional government. When the affairs of New 
England were settled after the accession of Wil- 
liam and Mary to the throne, Connecticut and 
Rhode Island were allowed to keep their old gov- 
ernments ; but Massachusetts in 1693 was obliged 
to take a new charter instead of her old one, and 
although this new charter revived the election of 
legislatures by the people, it left the governors 
henceforth to be appointed by the king. 

In the political controversies of Massachusetts, 
therefore, in the eighteenth century, the people 
were animated by the recollection of what they 
had lost. They were somewhat less free and in- 
dependent than their grandfathers had been, and 
they had learned what it was to have an irrespon- 
sible ruler sitting at his desk in Boston and sign- 
ing warrants for the arrest of loved and respected 
citizens who dared criticise his sayings and doings. 
"Taxation without representation" was not for 
them a mere abstract theory ; the/ knew what it 
meant. It was as near to them as the presidency 
of Andrew Jackson is to us ; there had not been 
time enough to forget it. In every contest be- 



24 TEE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

tween the popular legislature and the royal gov- 
ernor there was some broad principle involved 
which there were plenty of well-remembered facts 
to illustrate. 

These contests also helped to arouse a strong 
sympathy between the popular leaders in Massa- 
chusetts and in Virginia. Between the people 
of the two colonies there was not much real sym- 
pathy, because there was a good deal of differ- 
ence between their ways of life and their opin- 
ions about things ; and people, unless they are 
unusually wise and generous of nature, are apt 
to dislike and despise those who differ from them 
in opinions and habits. So there was little cor- 
Grounds of diality of feeling between the people of 
bS"ween^ Massachusctts and the people of Vir- 
SSTm' giiiia, but in spite of this there was a 
irgrnia. g^^at and growing political sympathy. 
This was because, ever since 1693, they had been 
obliged to deal with the same kind of political 
questions. It became intensely interesting to a 
Virginian to watch the progress of a dispute be- 
tween the governor and legislature of Massachu- 
setts, because whatever principle might be victo- 
rious in the course of such a dispute, it was sure 
soon to find a practical application in Virginia. 
Hence by the middle of the eighteenth century 
the two colonies were keenly observant of each 
other, and either one was exceedingly prompt in 
taking its cue from the other. It is worth while 



THE COLONIES IN 1750. 25 

to remember this fact, for without it there would 
doubtless have been rebellions or revolutions of 
American colonies, but there would hardly have 
been one American Kevolution, ending in a grand 
American Union. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FRENCH WARS, AND THE FIRST PLAN OF 
UNION. 

It was said a moment ago that one of the chief 
objects for which the governors wanted money 
was to maintain troops for defence against the 
French and the Indians. This was a very serious 
matter indeed. To any one who looked at a map 
of North America in 1750 it might well have 
seemed as if the French had secured for them- 
selves the greater part of the continent. The 

^. , ^ western frontier of the Ensrlish settle- 
Disputed <^ 

frontier be- mcuts was 2:enerallY within two hun- 

tween <-> «^ 

English CO?- ^^^^ miles of the sea-coast. In New 
onies. York it was at Johnson Hall, not far 

from Schenectady ; in Pennsylvania it was about 
at Carlisle ; in Virginia it was near Winchester, 
and the first explorers were just making their 
way across the Alleghany mountains. Westward 
of these frontier settlements lay endless stretches 
of forest inhabited by warlike tribes of red men 
who, everywhere except in New York, were hostile 
to the English and friendly to the French. Since 
the beginning of the seventeenth century French 
towns and villages had been growing up along 



THE FRENCH WARS. 27 

the St. Lawrence, and French explorers had been 
pushing across the Great Lakes and down the 
valley of the Mississippi river, near the mouth of 
which the French town of New Orleans had been 
standing since 1718. It was the French doctrine 
that discovery and possession of a river gave a 
claim to all the territory drained by that river. 
According to this doctrine every acre of Ameri- 
can soil from which water flowed into the St. Law- 
rence and the Mississippi belonged to France. 
The claims of the French thus came up to the 
very crest of the Alleghanies, and they made no 
secret of their intention to shut up the English 
forever between that chain of mountains and the 
sea-coast. There were times when their aims were 
still more aggressive and dangerous, when they 
looked with longing eyes upon the valley of the 
Hudson, and would fain have broken through 
that military centre of the line of English com- 
monwealths and seized the keys of empire over 
the continent. 

From this height of their ambition the French 
were kept aloof by the deadly enmity of the most 
fierce and powerful savages in the New World. 
The Indians of those days who came into contact 
with the white settlers were divided into many 
tribes with different names, but they all belonged 
to one or another of three great stocks r^^ Indian 
or families. First, there were the Mo- *"^^^' 
bilians^ far down south ; to this stock belonged 



28 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

the Creeks, Cherokees, and others. Secondly, 
there were the Algonquins, comprising the Dela^ 
wares to the south of the Susquehanna ; the 
Miamis, Shawnees, and others in the western 
wiklerness ; the Ottawas in Canada ; and all the 
tribes still left to the northeast of New England 
Thirdly, there were the Iroquois, of whom the 
most famous were the Five Nations of what is 
now central New York. These five great tribes 
— the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, 
and Senecas ■ — had for several generations been 
united in a confederacy which they likened to a 
long wigwam with its eastern door looking out 
upon the valley of the Hudson and its western 
toward the falls of Niagara. It was known far 
and wide over the continent as the Long House, 
and wherever it was known it was dreaded. 
When Frenclmien and Englishmen first settled 
in America, this Iroquois league was engaged in 
a long career of conquest. Algonquin tribes aU 
the way from the Connecticut to the Mississippi 
were treated as its vassals and forced to pay trib- 
ute in weapons and wampum. This conquering 
career extended through the seventeenth century, 
until it was brought to an end by the French. 
When the latter began making settlements in 
Canada, they courted the friendship of their Al- 
gonquin neighbours, and thus, without dreaming 
what deadly seed they were sowing, they were led 
to attack the terrible Long House. It was easy 



THE FRENCH WARS. 29 

enough for Cliamplain in 1609 to win a victory 
over savages who had never before seen a white 
man or heard the report of a musket ; but the 
victory was a fatal one for the French, for it 
made the Iroquois their eternal enemies. The 
Long House allied itseK first with the Dutch 
and afterwards with the English, and thus 
checked the progress of the French toward the 
lower Hudson. We too seldom think how much 
we owe to those formidable savages. 

The Iroquois pressed the French with so much 
vigour that in 1689 they even laid sies'e 

T»/r 1 -r^ 1 ^r^r^n i T-i i The French 

to Montreal. But by 16 96 the Irench, and the 
assisted by all the Algonquin tribes 
within reach, and led by their warlike viceroy, 
Count Frontenac, one of the most picturesque 
figures in American history, at length succeeded 
in getting the upperhand and dealing the Long 
House a terrible blow, from the effects of which 
it never recovered. The league remained formid- 
able, however, until the time of the revolutionary 
war. In 1715 its fighting strength was partially 
repaired by the adoption of the kindred Iroquois 
tribe of Tuscaroras, who had just been expelled 
from North Carolina by the English settlers, and 
migrated to New York. After this accession the 
league, henceforth known as the Six Nations, 
formed a power by no means to be despised, 
though much less bold and aggressive than in the 
previous century. 



30 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

After administering a check to the Iroquois, the 
French and Algonquins kept up for more than 
sixty years a desultory warfare against the Eng- 
lish colonies. Whenever war broke out between 
England and France, it meant war in America as 
well as in Europe. Indeed, one of the chief ob- 
jects of war, on the part of each of these two na- 
tions, was to extend its colonial dominions at the 
expense of the other. France and England were 
at war from 1689 to 1697; from 1702 to 1713; 
and from 1743 to 1748. The men in New York 
or Boston in 1750, who could remember the past 
sixty years, could thus look back over at least 
four-and-twenty years of open war ; and even in 
the intervals of professed peace there was a good 
deal of disturbance on the frontiers. A most 
frightful sort of warfare it was, ghastly with tor- 
ture of prisoners and the ruthless murder of 
women and children. The expense of raising and 
arming troops for defence was great enough to 
subject several of the colonies to a heavy burden 
of debt. In 1750 Massachusetts was just throw- 
ing: off the load of debt under which she had 
staggered since 1693 ; and most of this debt was 
incurred for expeditions against the French and 
Algonquins. 

Under these circumstances it was natural that 
the colonial governments should find it hard to 
raise enough money for war expenses, and that 
the governors should think the legislatures too 



THE FRENCH WARS. 31 

slow in acting. They were slow ; for, as is apt to 
be the case when money is to be borrowed with- 
out the best security, there were a good many 
things to be considered. All this was made worse 
by the fact that there were so many separate gov- 
ernments, so that each one was inclined to hold 
back and wait for the others. On the other hand, 
the French viceroy in Canada had despotic power ; 
the colony which he governed never pretended to 
be self-supporting ; and so, if he could not squeeze 
money enough out of the people in Canada, he 
just sent to France for it and got it ; for the gov- 
ernment of Louis XY. regarded Canada as one of 
the brightest jewels in its crown, and was always 
ready to spend money for damaging the 

Enerlish. Accordinoiy the Frenchman getting the 

111 1 • • 111- 1 ^"^""^^ ^°^- 

could plan nis campaign, call nis red oniestoact 

-. ^ ^ ^ f. .i" concert. 

men together, and set the whole frontier 
in a blaze, while the legislatures in Boston or 
New York were talking about what had better 
be done in case of invasion. No wonder the royal 
governors fretted and fumed, and sent home to 
England dismal accounts of the perverseness of 
these Americans ! Many people in England 
thought that the colonies were allowed to govern 
themselves altogether too much, and that for their 
own good the British government ought to tax 
them. Once while Sir Robert Walpole was prime 
minister (1721-1742) some one is said to have 
advised him to lay a direct tax upon the Ameri- 



32 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

cans ; but tliat wise old statesman shook Ms head. 
It was bad enough, he said, to be scolded and 
abused by half the people in the old country ; he 
did not wish to make enemies of every man, 
woman, and child in the new. 

But if the power to raise American armies for 
the common defence, and to collect money in 
America for this purpose, was not to be assumed 
by the British government, was there any way in 
which unity and promptness of action in time of 
war could be secured ? There was another way, 
if people could be persuaded to adopt it. The 
thirteen colonies might be joined together in a 
federal union ; and the federal government, with- 
out interfering in the local affairs of any single 
colony, might be clothed with the power of levy- 
ing taxes all over the country for purposes of 
common defence. The royal governors were in- 
clined to favour a union of the colonies, no matter 
how it might be brought about. They 
unfon be-* thought it ucccssary that some decisive 
E^ig^rsb col- step should be taken quickly, for it was 
""^ * evident that the peace of 1748 was only 

an armed truce. Evidently a great and decisive 
struggle was at hand. In 1750 the Oliio Com- 
pany, formed for the purpose of colonizing the 
valley drained by that river, had surveyed the 
country as far as the present site of Louisville. 
In 1753 the French, taking the alarm, crossed 
Lake Erie, and began to fortify themselves at 



THE FRENCH WARS. 33 

Presque Isle, and at Venango on the Alleghany 
river. They seized persons trading within the 
limits of the Ohio Company, which lay within the 
territory of Virginia ; and accordingly Governor 
Dinwiddie, of Virginia, selected George Washing- 
ton — a venturous and hardy young land-sur- 
veyor, only twenty-one years old, but gifted with 
a sagacity beyond his years — and sent him to 
Venango to warn off the trespassers. It was an 
exceedingly delicate and dangerous mission, and 
Washington showed rare skill and courage in this 
first act of his public career, but the French com- 
mander made polite excuses and remained. Next 
spring the French and English tried each to fore- 
stall the other in fortifying the all-important place 
where the AUeghany and Monongahela rivers 
unite to form the Ohio, the place long afterward 
commonly known as the " Gateway of the West," 
the place where the city of Pittsburgh now stands. 
In the course of these preliminary manoeuvres 
Washington was besieged in Fort Necessity by 
overwhehning numbers, and on July 4, 1754, was 
obliged to surrender the whole of his force, but 
obtained leave to mafch awjiyT^'^'^'S^- . the French 
got possession o^ .ilio; mueh-cc)Vi'teil sitiiBiion, and 
erected there j^ort T)iiquesne~as" a mena^ to aU 
future Englis|r^rMe&s. l^s ';^%iff^d not 
been declared i^^^en Fran!<!5~"aiid E^^nd, but 
^ these skirmishingp$g| ^i|j^ 4f tte^ ^^^^n earnest 
was not far off. 



34 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

In view of the approaching war a meeting was 
arranged at Albany between the principal chiefs 
of the Six Nations and commissioners from sev- 
eral of the colonies, that the alliance between Eng- 
lish and Iroquois might be freshly cemented ; and 
some of the royal governors improved the occasion 
to caU for a Congress of all the colonies, in order 
to prepare some plan of confederation 

The Congress i n i i • • i i mt 

at Albany, such as all the colonies might be willing 
to adopt. At the time of Washington's 
surrender such a Congress was in session at Al- 
bany, but Maryland was the most southerly colony 
represented in it. The people nowhere showed 
any interest in it. No pubhc meetings were held 
in its favour. The only newspaper which warmly 
approved it was the "Pennsylvania Gazette," 
which appeared with a union device, a snake di- 
vided into thirteen segments, with the motto 
" Unite or Die ! " 

The editor of this paper was Benjamin Frank- 
lin, then eight-and-forty years of age and already 
one of the most famous meii in America. In the 
preceding year he had been appointed by the 
crown postmaster-general for the American colo- 
nies, and he had received from the Royal Society 
the Copley medal for his brilliant discovery that 
lightning is a discharge of electricity. Franldin 
was very anxious to see the colonies united in a 
federal body, and he was now a delegate to the 
Congress. He drew up a plan of union which the 



THE^IRST PLAN OF UNIQN. 35 

Congress adopted, after a very long debate ; and 
it has ever since been known as the Albany Plan. 
The federal government was to consist, firsts of 
a President or Governor-general, appointed and 
paid by the crown, and holding office during its 
pleasure ; and secondly^ of a Grand Council com- 
posed of representatives elected every third year 
by the legislatures of the several colonies. This 
federal government was not to meddle Franklin's 
with the internal affairs of any colony, federal * 
but on questions of war and such other ^"^^°' 
questions as concerned all the colonies ahke, it 
was to be supreme ; and to this end it was to have 
the power of levying taxes for federal purposes 
directly upon the people of the several colonies. 
Philadelphia, as the most centrally situated of the 
larger towns, was mentioned as a proper seat for 
the federal government. 

The end of our story will show the wonderful 
foresightedness of Franklin's scheme. If the Rev- 
olution had never occurred, we might very likely 
have sooner or later come to live under a constitu- 
tion resembling the Albany Plan. On the other 
hand, if the Albany Plan had been put into oper- 
ation, it might perhaps have so adjusted the rela^ 
tions of the colonies to the British government 
that the Revolution would not have occurred. 
Perhaps, however, it would only have reproduced, 
on a larger scale, the irrepressible conflict between 
royal governor and popular assembly. The scheme 



36 T^E WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

failed for want of support. The Congress rec- 
ommended it to the colonial legislatures, but not 
one of them voted to adopt it. The difficulty 
was the same in 1754 that it was thirty years 
later, — only much stronger. The people of one 
colony saw but little of the people in another, had 
but few dealings with them, and cared not much 
about them. They knew and trusted their own 
local assemblies which sat and voted almost under 
their eyes ; they were not inclined to grant strange 
powers of taxation to a new assembly distant by 
a week's journey. This was a point to which peo- 
ple could never have been brought except as the 
alternative to something confessedly worse. 

The failure of the Albany Plan left the ques- 
tion of providing for military defence just where 
it was before, and the great Seven Years' War 
came on while governors and assemblies were 
wrangling to no purpose. In 1755 Braddock's 
army was unable to get support except 
from the steadfast personal exertions of 
Franklin, who used his great influence with the 
farmers of Pennsylvania to obtain horses, wagons, 
and provisions, pledging his own property for 
their payment. Nevertheless, as the war went on 
and the people of the colonies became fully alive 
to its importance, they did contribute liberally 
both in men and in money, and at last it appeared 
that in proportion to their wealth and population 
they had done even more than the regular army 



THE FIRST PLAN OF UNION. 37 

and the royal exchequer toward overthrowing the 
common enemy. 

When the war came to an end in 1763 the 
whole face of things in America was changed. 
Seldom, if ever, had the world seen so complete a 
victory. France no longer possessed so much as 
an acre of ground in all North America. The 
unknown regions beyond the Mississippi river 
were handed over to Spain in payment for boot- 
less assistance rendered to France toward the 
close of the war. Spain also received New Or- 
leans, while Florida, which then reached west- 
ward nearly to New Orleans, passed from Spanish 
into British hands. The whole country north of 
Florida and east of the Mississippi river, includ- 
ing Canada, was now English. A strong combi- 
nation of Indian tribes, chiefly Algonquin, under 
the lead of the Ottawa sachem Pontiac, made a 
last desperate attempt, after the loss of their 
French allies, to cripple the Eno^lish; 

, , ^rrnr c i • Overthrow 

but by IToo, aiter many harrowms^ of the 

r- 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 French pow- 

scenes of bloodshed, these red men were er in Amer- 
ica. 
crushed. There was no power left that 

could threaten the peace of the thirteen colonies 
unless it were the mother-country herseK. " Well," 
said the French minister, the Duke de Choiseul, 
as he signed the treaty that shut France out of 
North America, " so we are gone ; it will be Eng- 
land's turn next ! " And like a prudent seeker 
after knowledge, as he was, the Duke presently 



38 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 

bethought him of an able and high-minded man, 
the Baron de Kalb, and sent him in 1767 to Amer- 
ica, to look about and see if there were not good 
grounds for his bold prophecy. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE STAMP ACT, AND THE REVENUE LAWS. 

It did not take four years after the peace of 
1763 to show how rapidly the new situation of 
affairs was bearing fruit in America. The war 
had taught its lessons. Earlier wars had men- 
aced portions of the frontier, and had been fought 
by single colonies or alliances of two or three. 
This war had menaced the whole frontier, and the 
colonies, acting for the first time in general con- 
cert, had acquired some dim notion of their united 
strength. Soldiers and officers by and by to be 
arrayed against one another had here fought as 
allies, — John Stark and Israel Putnam by the 
side of WiUiam Howe; Horatio Gates by the 
side of Thomas Gage, — and it had not always 
been the regulars that bore off the palm for skill 
and endurance. One young man, of immense 
energy and fiery temper, united to rare prudence 
and fertility of resource, had already become 
famous enough to be talked about in England; 
in George Washington the Virginians recognized 
a tower of strength. 

The overthrow of their ancient enemy, while 
further increasing the self-confidence of the Amer- 



40 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

icans, at the same time removed the principal 
check which had hitherto kept their differences 
with the British government from coming to an 
open rupture. Formerly the dread of French at- 
tack had tended to make the Americans complai- 
Conse- ^^^^ toward the king's ministers, while 

the great'^ at the samc time it made the king's min- 
French War. ig^gj.g unwilling to losc the good will of 
the Americans. Now that the check was removed, 
the continuance or revival of the old disputes at 
once foreboded trouble ; and the old occasions for 
dispute were far from having ceased. On the 
contrary the war itself had given them fresh vital- 
ity. If money had been needed before, it was 
still more needed now. The war had entailed a 
heavy burden of expense upon the British gov- 
ernment as well as upon the colonies. The na- 
tional debt of Great Britain was much increased, 
and there were many who thought that, since the 
Americans shared in the benefits of the war they 
ought also to share in the burden which it left 
behind it. People in England who used this ar- 
gument did not realize that the Americans had 
really contributed as much as could reasonably be 
expected to the support of the war, and that it 
had left behind it debts to be paid in America 
as well as in England. But there was another 
argument which made it seem reasonable to many 
Englishmen that the colonists should be taxed. 
It seemed right that a small military force should 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 41 

be kept up in America, for defence of the fron- 
tiers against tlie Indians, even if there were no 
other enemies to be dreaded. The events of Pon- 
tiac's war now showed that there was clearly need 
of such a force ; and the experience of the royal 
governors for half a century had shown that it 
was very difficult to get the colonial legislatures 
to vote money for any such purpose. Hence there 
grew up in Eno^land a f eelino^ that taxes 
Qught to be raised m America as a con- steady rev- 

.1 . 1 enue. 

tribution to the war debt and to the 
military defence of the colonies ; and in order 
that such taxes should be fairly distributed and 
promptly collected, it was felt that the whole busi- 
ness ought to be placed under the direct super- 
vision and control of parliament. In accordance 
with this feeling the new prime minister, George 
Grenville in 1764 announced his intention of 
passing a Stamp Act for the easier collection of 
revenue in America. Meanwhile things had hap- 
pened in America which had greatly irritated the 
people, especially in Boston, so that they were in 
the mood for resisting anything that looked like 
encroachment on the part of the British govern- 
ment. To understand this other source of irrita- 
tion, we must devote a few words to the laws by 
which that government had for a long time un- 
dertaken to reg-ulate the commerce of the Amer- 
ican colonies. 



42 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

When European nations began to plant colo- 
nies in America, they treated them in accordance 
with a theory which prevailed until it was upset 
by the American Revolution. According to this 
ignorant and barbarous theory, a colony was a 
community which existed only for the purpose 
of enriching the country which had founded it. 
At the outset, the Spanish notion of a colony was 
that of a military station, which might plunder 
the heathen for the benefit of the hungry treas- 
ury of the Most Catholic monarch. But this 
theory was short-lived, like the enjoyment of the 
plunder which it succeeded in extorting. Accord- 
ing to the principles and practice of France and 
England — and of Spain also, after the first 
romantic fury of buccaneering had spent itself — 
What Euro- *^^ great object in founding a colony, ; 
SvveJr besides increasing one's general impor- 
^ounde? tance in the world and the area of one's 
^^^' dominions on the map, was to create a 

dependent community for the purpose of trading 
v/ith it. People's ideas about trade were very 
absurd. It was not understood that when two 
parties trade with each other freely, both must 
be gainers, or else one would soon stop trading. 
It was supposed that in trade, just as in gambling 
or betting, what the one party gains the other 
loses. Accordingly laws were made to regulate 
trade so that, as far as possible, all the loss might 
fall upon the colonies and all the gain accrue to 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 43 

the mother-country. In order to attain this ob- 
ject, the colonies were required to confine their 
trade entirely to England. No American colony 
could send its tobacco or its rice or its indigo to 
France or to Holland, or to any other country 
than England ; nor could it buy a yard of French 
silk or a pound of Chinese tea except from Eng- 
lish merchants. In this way English merchants 
sought to secure for themselves a monopoly of 
purchases and a monopoly of sales. By a fur- 
ther provision, although American ships might 
take goods to England, the carrying - trade be- 
tween the different colonies was strictly confined 
to British ships. Next, in order to protect British 
manufacturers from competition, it was thought 
necessary to prohibit the colonists from manufac- 
turing. They might grow wool, but it must be 
carried to England to be woven into cloth ; they 
might smelt iron, but it must be carried to Eng- 
land to be made into ploughshares. Finally, in 
order to protect British farmers and their land- 
lords, corn-laws were enacted, putting a prohibi- 
tory tariff on all kinds of grain and other farm 
produce shipped from the colonies to ports in 
Great Britain. 

Such absurd and tyrannical laws had begun to 
be made in the reign of Charles II., and by 1750 
not less than twenty-nine acts of parliament had 
been passed in this spirit. If these laws had 
been strictly enforced, the American Kevolution 



y 



44 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

would probably have come sooner than it did. In 
point of fact they were seldom strictly enforced, 
because so long as the French were a power in 
America the British government felt that it could 
not afford to irritate the colonists. In spite of 
laws to the contrary, the carrying-trade between 
the different colonies was almost monopolized by 
vessels owned, built, and manned in New Eng- 
land ; and the smuggling of foreign goods into 
Boston and New York and other seaport towns 
was winked at. 

It was in 1761, immediately after the over- 
throw of the French in Canada, that attempts 
were made to enforce the revenue laws more 
strictly than heretofore ; and trouble was at once 
threatened. Charles Paxton, the principal officer 
of the custom-house in Boston, applied to the 
Writs of Superior Court to grant him the author- 
assistance. '^.^ ^^ ^g^ u ^^its of assistaucc " in 
searching for smuggled goods. A writ of assist- 
ance was a general search-warrant, empowering 
the officer armed with it to enter, by force if 
necessary, any dwelling-house or warehouse where 
contraband goods were supjDosed to be stored or 
hidden. A special search-warrant was one in 
which the name of the suspected person, and the 
house which it was proposed to search, were ac- 
curately specified, and the goods which it was 
intended to seize were as far as possible described. 
In the use of such special warrants there was not 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 45 

much danger of gross injustice or oppression, 
because the court would not be likely to grant 
one unless strong evidence could be brought 
against the person whom it named. But the 
general search-warrant, or " writ of assistance," 
as it was called because men try to cover up the 
ugliness of hateful things by giving them inno- 
cent names, was quite a different affair. It was 
a blank form upon which the custom-house officer 
might fill in the names of persons and descrip- 
tions of houses and goods to suit himself. Then 
he could go and break into the houses and seize 
the goods, and if need be summon the sheriff and 
his^osse to help him in overcoming and brow- 
beating the owner. The writ of assistance was 
therefore axi abominable instrument of tyranny. 
Such writs had been allowed by a statute of the 
evil reign of Charles II. ; a statute of William 
III. had clothed custom-house officers in the col- 
onies with like powers to those which they pos- 
sessed in England ; and neither of these statutes 
had been repealed. There can therefore be little 
doubt that the issue of such search-warrants was 
strictly legal, unless the authority of Parliament 
to make laws for the colonies was to be denied. 

James Otis then held the crown office of advo- 
cate-general, with an ample salary and 

c ^ ' ^ {, (. James Otia. 

prospects or high favour irom govern- 
ment. When the revenue officers called upon him, 
in view of his position, to defend their cause, he 



46 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

resigned his office and at once undertook to act 
as counsel for the merchants of Boston in their 
protest against the issue of the writs. A large 
fee was offered him, but he refused it. " In such 
a cause," said he, " I despise all fees." The case 
was tried in the council-chamber at the east end 
of the old town-hall, or what is now known as 
the " Old State-House," in Boston. Chief-justice 
Hutchinson presided, and Jeremiah Gridley, one 
of the greatest lawyers of that day, argued the 
case for the writs in a very powerful speech. The 
reply of Otis, which took five hours in the deliv- 
ery, was one of the greatest speeches of modern 
times. It went beyond the particular legal ques- 
tion at issue, and took up the whole question of 
the constitutional relations between the colonies 
and the mother-country. At the bottom of this, 
as of all the disputes that led to the Revolution, 
lay the ultimate question whether Americans were 
bound to yield obedience to laws which they had 
no share in making. This question, and the spirit 
that answered it flatly and doggedly in the nega- 
tive, were heard like an undertone pervading all 
the arguments in Otis's wonderful speech, and it 
was because of this that the young lawyer John 
Adams, who was present, afterward declared that 
on that day " the child Independence was born." 
Chief -justice Hutchinson was a man of great 
ability and as sincere a patriot as any American 
of his time. He could feel the force of Otis's 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 47 

argument, but he believed that Parliament was 
the supreme legislative body for the whole Brit- 
ish emj)ire, and furthermore that it was the duty 
of a judge to follow the law as it existed. He 
reserved his decision until advice could be had 
from the law-officers of the crown in London ; 
and when next term he was instructed by them to 
grant the writs, this result added fresh impetus 
to the spirit that Otis's eloquence had aroused. 
The custom-house officers, armed with their writs, 
began breaking into warehouses and seizing goods 
which were said to have been smuggled. In this 
rough way they confiscated private property to 
the value of many thousands of pounds ; but 
sometimes the owners of warehouses armed them- 
selves and barricaded their doors and windows, 
and thus the officers were often successfully de- 
fied, for the sheriff was far from prompt in com- 
ing to aid them. 

While such things were going on in Boston, the 
people of Virginia were wrought into fierce excite- 
ment by what was known as the " Parsons' Cause." 
The Church of England was at that time estab- 
lished by law in Virginia, and its clergjniien, ap- 
pointed by English bishops, were unpopular. In 
1758 the legislature, under the pressure of the 
French war, had passed an act which affected all 
public dues and incidentally diminished the sal- 
aries of the clergy. Complaints were made to the 
Bishop of London, and the act of 1758 was vetoed 



48 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

by the king in council. Several clergymen then 
Patrick brought suits to recover the unpaid por- 
SeTarsons' tious of their sakrics. In the first test 
^*"^^" case there could be no doubt that the 

royal veto was legal enough, and the court there- 
fore decided in favour of the plaintiff. But it 
now remained to settle before a jury the amount 
of the damages. It was on this occasion, in De- 
cember, 1763, that the great orator Patrick Henry 
made his first speech in the court-room and at 
once became famous. He declared that no power 
on earth could take away from Virginia the right 
to make laws for herself, and that in annulling a 
wholesome law at the request of a favoured class 
in the community " a king, from being the father 
of his peoj)le, degenerates into a tyrant, and for- 
feits all right to obedience." This bold talk 
aroused much excitement and some uproar, but 
the jury instantly responded by assessing the par- 
son's damages at one penny, and in 1765 Henry 
was elected a member of the colonial assembly. 

Thus almost at the same time in Massachusetts 
and in Virginia the preliminary scenes of the Rev- 
olution occurred in the court-room. In each 
case the representatives of the crown had the let- 
ter of the law on their side, but the principles of 
the only sound public policy, by which a Revolu- 
tion could be avoided, were those that were de- 
fended by the advocates of the people. At each 
successive move on the part of the British govern- 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 49 

ment which looked like an encroachment upon 
the rights of Americans, the sympathy between 
these two leading colonies now grew stronger and 
stronger. 

It was in 1763 that George Grenville became 
prime minister, a man of whom Macaulay says 
that he knew of " no national interests excejit 
those which are expressed by pounds, shillings, 
and pence." Grenville proceeded to introduce 
into Parliament two measures which had conse- 
quences of which he little dreamed. The first of 
these measures was the Molasses Act, the second 
was the Stamp Act. 

Properly speaking, the Molasses Act was an 
old law which Grenville now made up his mind to 
revive and enforce. The commercial wealth of 
the New England colonies depended largely upon 
their trade with the fish which their fishermen 
caught along the coast and as far out as the banks 
of Newfoundland. The finest fish could be sold 
in Europe, but the poorer sort found their chief 
market in the French West Indies. The 
French government, in order to ensure 
a market for the molasses raised in these islands, 
would not allow the planters to give anything else 
in exchange for fish. Great quantities of molas- 
ses were therefore carried to New England, and 
what was not needed there for domestic use was 
distilled into rum, part of which was consumed at 
home, and the rest carried chiefly to Africa where- 



The Molas- 
ses Act. 






60 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

with to buy slaves to be sold to the southern col- 
onies. All this trade required many ships, and 
thus kept up a lively demand for New England 
lumber, besides finding employment for thousands 
of sailors and shipwrights. Now in 1733 the 
British government took it into its head to " j)ro-. 
tect " its sugar planters in the English West In- 
dies by compelling the New England merchants 
to buy all their molasses from them ; and with 
this end in view it forthwith laid upon all sugar 
and molasses imported into North America from 
the French islands a duty so heavy that, if it had 
been enforced, it would have stopped all such 
importation. It is very doubtful if this measure 
would have attained the end which the British 
government had in view. Probably it would not 
have made much difference in the export of 
molasses from the English West Indies to New 
England, because the islanders happened not to 
want the fish which their French neighbours 
coveted. But the New Englanders could see that 
the immediate result would be to close the market 
for their cheaper kinds of fish, and thus ruin their 
trade in lumber and rum, besides shutting up 
many a busy shipyard and turning more than 
5000 sailors out of employment. It was estimated 
that the yearly loss to New England would ex- 
ceed £300,000. It was hardly wise in Great 
Britain to entail such a loss upon some of her 
best customers ; for with their incomes thus cut 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 51 

down, it was not to be expected that the people of 
New England would be able to buy as many farm- 
ing tools, dishes, and pieces of furniture, garments 
of silk or wool, and wines or other luxuries, from 
British merchants as before. The government in 
passing its act of 1733 did not think of these 
consequences ; but it proved to be impossible to 
enforce the act without causing more disturbance 
than the government felt prepared to encounter. 
Now in 1764 Grenville announced that the act 
was to be enforced, and of course the machinery 
of writs of assistance was to be employed for 
that purpose. Henceforth all molasses from the 
French islands must either pay the prohibitory 
duty or be seized without ceremony. 

Loud and fierce was the indignation of New 
England over this revival of the Molasses Act. 
Even without the Stamp Act, it might very likely 
have led that part of the country to make armed 
resistance, but in such case it is not so sure that 
the southern and middle colonies would have 
come to the aid of New England. But in the 
Stamp Act Grenville provided the colonies with 
an issue which concerned one as much as another, 
and upon which they were accordingly sure to 
unite in resistance. It was also a much better 
issue for the Americans to take up, for it was not 
a mere revival of an old act ; it was a new depart- 
ure; it was an imposition of a kind to which 
the Americans had never before been called upon 



52 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

to submit, and in resisting it they were sure to 
enlist the sympathies of a good many powerful 
peoj^le in England. 

The Stamp Act was a direct tax laid upon the 
whole American people by Parliament, a legisla^ 
tive body in which they were not represented. 
The British government had no tyrannical pur- 
pose in devising this tax. A stamp duty had 
I The Stamp already been suggested in 1755 by Wil- 
^^^' liam Shirley, royal governor of Massa- 

chusetts, a worthy man and much more of a fa- 
vourite with the people than most of his class. 
Shirley recommended it as the least disagreeable 
kind of tax, and the easiest to collect. It did not 
call for any hateful searching of people's houses 
and shops, or any unpleasant questions about 
their incomes, or about their invested or hoarded 
wealth. It only required that legal documents 
and commercial instruments should be written, 
and newspapers printed, on stamped paper. Of 
all kinds of direct tax none can be less annoying, 
except for one reason ; it is exceedingly difficult 
to evade such a tax ; it enforces itself. For these 
reasons Grenville decided to adopt it. He ar- 
ranged it so that all the officers charged with the 
business of selling the stamped paper should be 
Americans ; and he gave formal notice of the 
measure in March, 1764, a year beforehand, in 
order to give the colonies time to express their 
opinions about it. 



^ 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 53 

In tlie Boston town-meeting in May, almost as 
soon as the news had arrived, the American view 
of the case was very clearly set forth in a series 
of resolutions drawn up by Samuel Adams. This 
was the first of the remarkable state papers from 
the pen of that great man, who now, at gamuei 
the age of forty-two, was just entering ^*^*™^- 
upon a glorious career. Samuel Adams was a 
graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1740. 
He had been reared in politics from boyhood, for 
his father, a deacon of the Old South Church, had 
been chief spokesman of the popidar party in its 
disputes with the royal governors. Of all the 
agencies in organizing resistance to Great Britain 
none were more powerful than the New England 
town-meetings, among which that of the people of 
Boston stood preeminent, and in the Boston town- 
meeting for more than thirty years no other man 
exerted so much influence as Samuel Adams. 
This was because of his keen intelligence and per- 
suasive talk, his spotless integrity, indomitable 
courage, unselfish and unwearying devotion to the 
public good, and broad sympathy with all classes 
of people. He was a thorough democrat. He 
respected the dignity of true manhood wherever 
he found it, and could talk with sailors and shir)- 
Wrights like one of themselves, while at the same 
time in learned argument he had few superiors. 
He has been called the " Father of the Revolu- 
tion," and was no doubt its most conspicuous 



64 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

figure before 1775, as Washington certainly was 
after that date. 

This earliest state paper of Samuel Adams con- 
tained the first formal and public denial of the 
right of Parliament to tax the colonies, because 
it was not a body in which their people were rep- 
resented. The resolutions were adopted by the 
Massachusetts assembly, and a similar action was 
taken by Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, and South Carolina. The colonies pro- 
fessed their willingness to raise money in answer 
to requisitions upon their assemblies, which were 
the only bodies competent to lay taxes in Amer- 
ica. Memorials stating these views were sent to 
England, and the colony of Pennsylvania sent Dr. 
Franklin to represent its case at the British court. 
Franklin remained in London until the spring of 
1775 as agent first for Pennsylvania, afterward 
for Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia, — a 
kind of diplomatic representative of the views and 
claims of the Americans. 

Grenville told Franklin that he wished to do 
things as pleasantly as possible, and was. not dis- 
posed to insist upon the Stamp Act, if the Ameri- 
cans could suggest anything better. But when it 
appeared that no alternative was offered except to 
fall back upon the old clumsy system of requisi- 
tions, Grenville naturally replied that there ought 
to be some more efficient method of raising money 
for the defence of the frontier. Accordingly in 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS, 55 

March, 1765, the Stamp Act was passed, with so 
little debate that people hardly noticed what was 
going on. But when the news reached America 
there was an outburst of wrath that was soon 
heard and felt in London. In May the Virginia 
legislature was assembled. George Washington 
was sitting there in his seat, and Thomas Jeffer- 
son, then a law-student, was listening eagerly from 
outside the door, when Patrick Henry introduced 
the famous resolutions in which he de- 
clared, among other things, that an at- Resolutions, 
tempt to vest the power of taxation in 
any other body than the colonial assembly was a 
menace, to the common freedom of Englislmien, 
whether in Britain or in America, and that the 
people of Virginia were not bound to obey any 
law enacted in disregard of this principle. The 
language of the resolutions was bold enough, but 
a keener edge was put upon it by the defiant note 
which rang out from Henry in the course of the 
debate, when he commended the example of Tar- 
quin and Caesar and Charles I. to the attention of 
George III. " If this be treason," he exclaimed, 
as the speaker tried to call him to order, " if this 
be treason, make the most of it ! " 

The other colonies were not slow in acting. 
Massachusetts called for a general congress, in 
order that all might discuss the situation and 
agree upon some course to be pursued in common. 
South Carolina responded most cordially, at the 



56 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

instance of her noble, learned, and far-sighted 
patriot, Christojjher Gadsden. On the 7th of 
October, delegates from nine colonies met in a 
congress at New York, adopted resolutions like 
those of Virginia, and sent a memorial to the 
king, whose sovereignty over them they admitted, 
and a remonstrance to Parliament, whose authority 
to tax them they denied. The meeting of this 
congress was in itself a prophecy of what was to 
happen if the British government should persist 
in the course upon which it had now entered. 

Meanwhile the summer had witnessed riots in 
many places, and one of these was extremely dis- 
graceful. Chief -justice Hutchinson had tried to 
dissuade the ministry from passing the Stamp 
Act, but an impression had got abroad among the 
wharves and waterside taverns of Boston that he 
had not only favoured it but had gone out of his 
way to send information to London, naming cer- 
tain merchants as smugglers. Under the influ- 
ence of this mistaken notion, on the night of the 
stamp Act ^^*^^ ^^ August a drunkcu mob plun- 
riots. dered Hutchinson's house in Boston 

and destroyed his library, which was probably the 
finest in America at that time. Here, as is apt 
to be the case, the mob selected the wrong victim. 
Its shameful act was denounced by the people of 
Massachusetts, and the chief-justice was indem- 
nified by the legislature. In the other instances 
the riots were of an innocent sort. Stamp officers 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 57 

were forced to resign. Boxes of stamped paper 
arriving by ship were burned or thrown into the 
sea, and at length the governor of New York was 
compelled by a mob to surrender all the stamps 
entrusted to his care. These things were done for 
the most part under the direction of societies of 
workingmen known as " Sons of Liberty," who 
were pledged to resist the execution of the Stamp 
Act. At the same time associations of merchants 
declared that they would buy no more goods from 
England until the act should be repealed, and 
lawyers entered into agreements not to treat any 
document as invalidated by the absence of the re- 
quired stamp. As for the editors, they published 
their newspapers decorated with a grinning skull 
and cross-bones instead of the stamp. 

These demonstrations produced their effect in 
England. In July, 1765, the Grenville ministry 
fell, and the new government, with Lord Rock- 
ingham at its head, was more inclined to pay heed 
to the wishes and views of the Americans. The 
debate over the repeal of the Stamp Act j^^^^^j ^^ ^^^ 
lasted nearly three months and was one ^*^°^p ^^*" 
of the fiercest that had been heard in Parliament 
for many a day. William Pitt declared that he 
rejoiced in the resistance of the Americans, and 
urged that the act should be repealed because 
Parliament ought never to have passed it; but 
there were very few who took this view. As the 
result of the long debate, at the end of March, 



58 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

1766, the Stamp Act was repealed, and a De- 
claratory Act was passed in which Parliament 
said in effect that it had a right to make such 
laws for the Americans if it chose to do so. 

The people of London, as well as the Amer- 
icans, hailed with delight the repeal of the Stamp 
Act; but the real trouble had now only begun. 
The resolutions of Samuel Adams and Patrick 
Henry and their approval by the Congress at New 
York had thrown the question of American tax- 
ation into the whirlpool of British politics, and 
there it was to stay until it worked a change for 
the better in England as well as in America. 

The principle that people must not be taxed 
except by their representatives had been to some 
extent recognized in England for five hundred 
years, and it was really the fundamental principle 
of English liberty, but it was only very 
question was imperfcctlv that it had been put into 

affected by ^ . t i • i i 

British poll- practicc. In the eighteenth century the 
House of Commons was very far from 
being a body that fairly represented the people of 
Great Britain. For a long time there had been 
no change in the distribution of seats, and mean- 
while the population had been increasing very dif- 
ferently in different parts of the kingdom. Thus 
great cities which had grown up in recent times, 
such as Sheffield and Manchester, had no repre- 
sentatives in Parliament, while many little bor- 
oughs with a handful of inhabitants had their 






THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 59 

representatives. Some such boroughs had been 
granted representation by Henry YIII. in order 
to create a majority for his measures in the House 
of Commons. Others were simply petty towns 
that had dwindled away, somewhat as the moun- 
tain villaoes of New Engfland have dwindled since 
the introduction of railroads. The famous Old 
Sarum had members in Parliament long after it 
had ceased to have any inhabitants. Seats for 
these rotten boroughs, as they were called, were 
sinijjly bought and sold. Political life in Eng- 
land was exceedingly corrupt ; some of the best 
statesmen indulged in wholesale bribery as if it 
w ere the most innocent thing in the world. The 
country was really governed by a few great fam- 
ilies, some of whose members sat in the House 
of Lords and others in the House of Commons.. 
Their measures were often noble and patriotic in 
the highest degree, but when bribery and corrup- 
tion seemed necessary for carrying them, such 
means were employed without scruple. 

When George III. came to the throne in 1760, 
the great families which had thus governed Eng- 
land for half a century belonged to the party 
known as Old Whigs. Under their rule the power 
of the crown had been reduced to in- 
significance, and the modern system of and his pout- 
cabinet government by a responsible 
Ministry had begun to grow up. The Tory fam- 
ilies during this period had been very unpopular, 



60 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

because of their sympatliy with the Stuart pre- 
tenders who had twice attempted to seize the 
crown and given the country a brief taste of civil 
war. By 1760 the Tories saw that the cause of 
the Stuarts was hopeless, and so they were in- 
clined to transfer their affections to the new king. 
George III. was a young man of narrow intelli- 
gence and poor education, but he entertained very 
strong opinions as to the importance of his kingly 
office. He meant to make himself a real king, 
like the king of France or the king of Spain. He 
was determined to break down the power of the 
Old Whigs and the system of cabinet government, 
and as the Old Whigs had been growing unpopu- 
lar, it seemed quite possible, with the aid of the 
Tories, to accomplish this. George was quite 
decorous in behaviour, and, although subject to 
fits of insanity which became more troublesome in 
his later years, he had a fairly good head for busi- 
ness. Industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a 
mule, he was an adept in political trickery. In 
the corrupt use of patronage he showed himself 
able to beat the Old Whigs at their own game, 
and with the aid of the Tories he might well be- 
lieve himself capable of reviving for his own ben- 
efit the lost power of the crown. 

Beside these two parties a third had been for 
some time growing up which was in some essential 
points opposed to both of them. This third party 
was that of the New Whigs. They wished to 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 61 

reform the representation in Parliament in such 
wise as to disfranchise the rotten bor- ^j^^ u ^ew 
oughs and give representatives to great ^rifamentary 
towns like Leeds and Manchester, They ^^^''''^' 
held that it was contrary to the j)rinciples of Eng- 
lish liberty that the inhabitants of such great 
towns should be obliged to pay taxes in pursuance 
of laws which they had no share in making. The 
leader of the New Whigs was the greatest Eng- 
lishman of the eighteenth century, the elder Wil- 
liam Pitt, now about to pass into the House of 
Lords as Earl of Chatham. Their leader next in 
importance, William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, 
was in 1765 a young man of eight-and-twenty, and 
afterward came to 1^ known as one of the most 
learned and sag^ious statesmen of his time. 
These men were the forerunners of the great lib- 
eral leaders of the nineteenth century, such men 
as Russell and Cobden and Gladstone. Their 

I' first decisive and overwhehning victory was the 
passage of Lord John Russell's Reform Bill in 
1832, but the agitation for reform was begun by 

I William Pitt in 1745, and his famous son came 

' very near winning the victory on that question in 

1 1782. 
f Now this question of parliamentary reform was 

'iatimately related to the question of taxing the 

; 1 Lmerican colonies. From some points of view 
{ ley might be considered one and the same ques- 

' tilon. At a meeting of Presbyterian ministers in 



62 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Philadelpliia, it was pertinently asked, " Have two 
men chosen to represent a poor English borough 
that has sold its votes to the highest bidder any 
pretence to say that they represent Virginia or 
Pennsylvania ? And have four hundred such fel- 
lows a rio:ht to take our liberties ? " In Parlia- 
ment, on the other hand, as well as at London 
dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, 
it was repeatedly urged that the Americans need 
not make so much fuss about being taxed without 
being represented, for in that respect they were 
no worse off than the people of Sheffield or Birming- 
ham. To this James Otis replied, " Don't talk to 
us any more about those towns, for we are tired 
of such a flimsy argument. If they are not rep- 
resented, they ought to be ; " and by the New 
Whigs this retort was greeted with applause. 

The opinions and aims of the three different 
parties were reflected in the long debate over the 
repeal of the Stamp Act. The Tories wanted to 
have the act continued and enforced, and such 
was the wish of the king. Both sections of Whigs 
were in favour of repeal, but for very different 
reasons. Pitt and the New Whigs, being advo- 
cates of parliamentary reform, came out flatly in 
support of the principle that there should be no 
taxation without representation. Edmund Burk*; 
and the Old Whigs, being opposed to parliamen- 
tary reform and in favour of keeping things jus '; 
as they were, could not adopt such an argument ; 



1 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 63 

and accordingly they based their condemnation of 
the Stamp Act upon grounds of pure expediency. 
They argued that it was not worth while, for the 
sake of a little increase of revenue, to irritate 
three million people and run the risk of getting 
drawn into a situation from which there would be 
no escape except in either retreating or fighting. 
There was much practical wisdom in this Old 
Whig argument, and it was the one which pre- 
vailed when Parliament repealed the Stamp Act 
and expressly stated that it did so only on grounds 
of expediency. 

There was one person, however, who was far 
from satisfied with this result, and that was 
George III. He was opposed to parliamentary 
reform for much the same reason that the Old 
Whigs were opposed to it, because he felt that it 
threatened him with political ruin. The 

^ Why George 

Old Whio^s needed the rotten borous^hs ni. was ready 

^ <^ to pick a quar- 

in order to maintain their own control ^f ^ ^**^ ^^^ 

Americans. 

over Parliament and the country. The 
king needed them because he felt himself able to 
wrest them from the Old Whigs by intrigue and 
corruption, and thus hoped to build up his own 
power. He believed, with good reason, that the 
suppression of the rotten boroughs and the grant- 
ing of fair and equal representation would soon 
put a stronger curb upon the cro^vn than ever. 
Accordingly there were no men whom he dreaded 
and wished to put down so much as the New 



64 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Wliigs ; and he felt that in the repeal of the 
Stamj) Act, no matter on what ground, they had 
come altogether too near winning a victory. He 
felt that this outrageous doctrine that people must 
not be taxed except by their representatives 
needed to be sternly rebuked, and thus he found 
himself in the right sort of temper for picking a 
fresh quarrel with the Americans. V^ 

An occasion soon presented itself?^ One of the 
king's devices for breaking down the system of 
cabinet government was to select his ministers 
from different parties, so that they might be un« 
able to work harmoniously together. Owing to 
the peculiar divisions of parties in Parliament he 
was for some years able to carry out this policy, 
and while his cabinets were thus weak and di- 
vided, he was able to use his control of patronage 
with telling effect. In July, 1766, he got rid of 
Lord Rockingham and his Old Whigs, and formed 
a new ministry made up from all parties. It con- 
tained Pitt, who had now, as Earl of Chatham, 
gone into the House of Lords, and at the same 
time Charles Townshend, as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. Townshend, a brilliant young man, 
without any political principles worth mentioning, 
was the most conspicuous among a group of wire- 
pullers who were coming to be known as "the 
king's friends." Serious illness soon kept Chatham 
at home, and left Townshend all-powerful in the 
cabinet, because he was bold and utterly unscru- 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 65 

pulous and had the king to back him. His auda- 
city knew no limits, and he made up his mind that 
the time had come for gathering all the disputed 
American questions, as far as possible, into one 
bundle, and disposing of them once for all. So in 
May, 1767, he brouoht forward in Par- ^ 

'^ ' ' ^ ^ ^ Charles 

liament a series of acts for raisinof and Townshend 

<-" and his rev- 

applying a revenue in America. The ^^^^ ^^ts, 
colonists, he said, had objected to a di- 
rect tax, but they had often submitted to port 
duties, and could not reasonably refuse to do so 
again. Duties were accordingly to be laid on 
glass, paper, lead, and painter's colours ; on wine, 
oil, and fruits, if carried directly to America from 
Spain and Portugal ; and especially on tea. A 
board of commissioners was to be established at 
Boston, to superintend the collection of revenue 
throughout the colonies, and writs of assistance 
were to be expressly legalized. The salaries of 
these commissioners were to be paid out of the 
revenue thus collected. Governors, judges, and 
crown-attorneys were to be made independent of 
the colonial legislatures by having their salaries 
paid by the crown out of this same fund. A 
small army was also to be kept up ; and if after 
providing for these various expenses, any sur- 
plus remained, it could be used by the crown in 
giving pensions to Americans and thus be made to 
serve as a corrujjtion-fund. These measures were 
adopted on the 29th of June, and as if to refute 



66 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

anybody who might be inclined to think that rash- 
ness could no further go, Townshend accompanied 
them with a special act directed against the New 
York legislature, which had refused to obey an 
order concerning the quartering of troops. By 
way of punislunent, Townshend now suspended 
the legislature. A few weeks after carrying 
these measures Townshend died of a fever, and his 
, , „ place was taken by Lord North, eldest 

Lord North. ^ ^ -^ ^ ' 

son of the Earl of Guilford. North was 
thirty-five years of age. He was amiable and 
witty, and an excellent debater, but without force 
of will. He let the king rule him, and was at the 
same time able to show a strong hand in the 
House of Commons, so that the king soon came 
to regard him as a real treasure. Soon after 
North's appointment, Lord Chatham and other 
friends of America in the cabinet resigned their 
places and were succeeded by friends of the king. 
From 1768 to 1782 George IH. was to all intents 
and purposes his own prime minister, and con- 
trived to keep a majority in Parliament. During 
those fourteen years the American question was 
uppermost, and his policy was at all hazards to 
force the colonists to abandon their position that 
taxation must go hand in hand with representa- 
tion. 

This purpose was already apparent in Charles 
Townshend' s acts. They were not at all like 
previous acts imposing port duties to which the 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 67 

Americans had submitted. British historians 
sometimes speak of the American Revokition as 
an affair which grew out of a mere dispute about 
money ; and even among Americans, in ordinary 
conversation and sometimes in current literature, 
the unwillingness of our forefathers to pay a tax 
of threepence a pound on tea is mentioned with- 
out due reference to the attendant circumstances 
which made them refuse to pay such a tax. We 
cannot hope to understand the fierce wrath by 
which they were animated unless we bear in mind 
not only the simple fact of the tax, but also the 
spirit in which it was levied and the purpose for 
which the revenue was to be used. The ^j^^^ ^^^ 
Molasses Act threatening the ruin of Jct^^eaUy"^ 
New England commerce was still on "'®^*^- 
the statute-book, and commissioners, armed with 
odious search-warrants for enforcing this and 
other tyrannical laws, were on their way to Amer- 
ica. For more than half a century the people 
had jealously guarded against the abuse of power 
by the royal governors by making them depend- 
ent upon the legislatures for their salaries. Now 
they were all at once to be made independent, 
so that they might even dismiss the legislatures, 
and if need be call for troops to help them. The 
judges, moreover, with their power over men's 
lives and property, were no longer to be respon- 
sible to the people. If these changes were to be 
effected, it woidd be nothing less than a revolu- 



68 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

tion by which the Americans would be deprived 
of their liberty. And, to crown all, the money 
by which this revolution was to be brought about 
was to be contributed in the shajie of port duties 
by the Americans themselves ! To expect our fore- 
fathers to submit to such, legislation as this was 
about as sensible as it would have been to expect 
them to obey an order to buy halters and hang 
themselves. 

When the news of the Townshend acts reached 
Massachusetts, the assembly at its next session 
took a decided stand. Besides a petition to the 
king and letters to several leading British states- 
men, it issued a circular letter addressed to the 
other twelve colonies, asking for their friendly 
advice and cooperation with reference to the 
Townshend measures. These papers were writ- 
ten by Samuel Adams. The circular letter was 
really an invitation to the other colonies to con- 
cert measures of resistance if it should be found 
necessary. It enraged the king, and presently 
an order came across the ocean to Francis Ber- 
nard, royal governor of Massachusetts, to demand 
of the assembly that it rescind its circular letter, 
under penalty of instant dissolution. Otis ex- 
claimed that Great Britain had better rescind the 
Townshend acts if she did not wish to lose her 
colonies. The assembly decided, by a vote of 92 
to 17, that it would not rescind. This flat de- 
fiance was everywhere applauded. The assem- 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 69 

blies of the other colonies were ordered to take 
no notice of the Massachusetts circular, but the 
order was generally disobeyed, and in several 
cases the governors turned the assemblies out of 
doors. The atmosphere of America now became 
alive with politics ; more meetings were held, 
more speeches made, and more pamphlets printed, 
than ever before. 

In England the dignified and manly course of 
the Americans was generally greeted with ap- 
plause by Whigs of whatever sort, except those 
who had come into the somewhat widening circle 
of "the king's friends." The Old Whigs,— 
Burke, Fox, Conway, Savile, Lord John 

\ ' ^ ' ' , The quarrel 

Cavendish, and the Duke of Richmond ; ^as not be- 
tween Eng- 
and the New Whio-s, — Chatham, Shel- ifnd and 

^ ' ' America, but 

burne, Camden, Dunning', Barre, and ^«*^«®"„ 

' ' O' ' George in. 

Beckford ; steadily defended the Amer- ^^pie"' wwch 
icans throuo'hout the whole of the Rev- ^^ll^'^ft' 
olutionary crisis, and the weight of the ^^^"®^* 
best intelligence in the country was certainly on 
their side. Could they have acted as a united 
body, could Burke and Fox have joined forces in 
harmony with Chatham and Shelburne, they 
might have thwarted the king and prevented the 
rupture with America. But George III. profited 
by the hopeless division between these two Whig 
parties ; and as the quarrel with America grew 
fiercer, he succeeded in arraying the national 
pride to some extent upon his side and against 



70 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

the Whigs. This made him feel stronger and 
stimulated his zeal against the Americans. He 
felt that if he could first crush Whig principles 
in America, he could then turn and crush them 
in England. In this he was correct, except that 
he miscalculated the strength of the Americans. 
It was the defeat of his schemes in America that 
ensured their defeat in England. It is quite 
wrong and misleading, therefore, to remember the 
Revolutionary War as a struggle between the 
British people and the American people. It was 
a struggle between two hostile principles, each of 
which was represented in both countries. In win- 
ning the good fight, our forefathers won a victory 
for England as well as for America. What was 
crushed was George III. and the kind of despot- 
ism which he wished to fasten upon America in 
order that he might fasten it upon England. If 
the memory of George III. deserves to be exe- 
crated, it is especially because he succeeded in 
giving to his own selfish struggle for power the 
appearance of a struggle between the people of 
England and the peoj^le of America ; and in so 
doing, he sowed seeds of enmity and distrust be- 
tween two glorious nations that, for their own 
sakes and for the weKare of mankind, ought 
never for one moment to be allowed to forget 
their brotherhood. Time, however, is rapidly re- 
pairing the damage which George III.'s policy 
wrought, and it need in nowise disturb our narra- 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 71 

tive. In this brief sketch we must omit hun- 
dreds of interesting details ; but, if we would look 
at things from the right point of view, we must 
bear in mind that every act of George III., from 
1768 onward, which brought on and carried on 
the Revolutionary AVar, was done in spite of the 
earnest protest of many of the best people in 
England ; and that the king's wrong-headed pol- 
icy prevailed only because he was able, through 
corrupt methods, to command a parliament which 
did not reaUy represent the people. Had the 
principles in support of which Lord Chatham 
joined hands with Samuel Adams for one moment 
prevailed, the king's schemes woidd have collapsed 
like a soap-bubble. 

As it was, in 1768 the king succeeded, in spite 
of strong opposition, in carrying his point. He 
saw that the American colonies were disposed to 
resist the Townshend acts, and that in this defiant 
attitude Massachusetts was the ringleader. The 
Massachusetts circular pointed toward united ac- 
tion on the part of the colonies. Above all things 
it was desirable to prevent any such union, and 
accordingly the king decided to make his prin- 
cipal attack upon Massachusetts, while dealing 
more kindly with the other colonies. Thus' he 
hoped Massachusetts might be isolated and hum- 
bled, and in this belief he proceeded faster and 
more rashly than if he had supposed himself to 
be dealing with a united America. In order to 



72 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

catcli Samuel Adams and James Otis, and get 
them sent over to England for trial, he attempted 
to revive an old statute of Henry VIII. about 
treason committed abroad; and in order to en- 
force the revenue laws in spite of all opposition, 
he ordered troops to be sent to Boston. 

This was a very harsh measure, and some ex- 
Troops sent ^^s® ^^^ needed to justify it before 
to Boston. Parliament. It was urged that Boston 
was a disorderly town, and the sacking of Hutch- 
inson's house could be cited in support of this 
view. Then in June, 1768, there was a slight con- 
flict between townspeople and revenue officers, in 
which no one was hurt, but which led to a great 
town-meeting in the Old South Meeting-House, 
and gave Governor Bernard an opportunity for 
saying that he was intimidated and hindered in 
the execution of the laws. The king's real pur- 
pose, however, in sending troops was not so much 
to kee]3 the peace as to enforce the Townshend 
acts, and so the people of Boston understood it. 
Except for these odious and tyrannical laws, there 
was nothing that threatened disturbance in Bos- 
ton. The arrival of British troops at Long 
Wharf, in the autumn of 1768, simply increased 
the danger of disturbance, and in a certain sense 
it may be said to have been the beginning of the 
Revolutionary War. Very few people realized 
this at the time, but Samuel Adams now made up 
his mind that the only way in which the Ameri- 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 73 

can colonies could preserve their liberties was to 
unite in some sort of federation and declare 
themselves independent of Great Britain. It was 
with regret that he had come to this conclusion, 
and he was very slow in proclaiming it, but after 
1768 he kept it distinctly before his mind. He 
saw clearly the end toward which public opinion 
was gradually drifting, and because of his great 
influence over the Boston town-meeting and the 
Massachusetts assembly, this clearness of purpose 
made him for the next seven years the most for- 
midable of the king's antagonists in America. 

The people of Boston were all the more indig- 
nant at the arrival of troops in their town because 
the king in his hurry to send them had even disre- 
garded the act of Parliament which provided for 
such cases. According to that act the soldiers 
ought to have been lodged in Castle William on 
one of the little islands in the harbour. Even ac- 
cording to British-made law they had no business 
to be quartered in Boston so long as there was 
room for them in the Castle. During the next 
seventeen months the people made several formal 
protests against their presence in town, and asked 
for their removal. But these protests were all 
fruitless until innocent blood had been shed. The 
soldiers generally behaved no worse than rough 
troopers on such occasions are apt to do, and the 
townspeople for the most part preserved decorum, 
but quarrels now and then occurred, and after 



74 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

a while became frequent. In September, 1769, 
James Otis was brutally assaulted at the British 
Coffee House by one of the commissioners of cus- 
toms aided and abetted by two or three army offi- 
cers. His health was already feeble and in this 
affray he was struck on the head with a sword 
and so badly injured that he afterward became 
insane. After this the feeling of the people 
toward the soldiers was more bitter than ever. 
In February, 1770, there was much disturbance. 
Toward the end of the month an informer named 
Richardson fired from his window into a crowd 
and kUled a little boy about eleven years of age, 
named Christopher Snyder. The funeral of this 
poor boy, the first victim of the Revolution, was 
attended on Monday, the 26th, by a great proces- 
sion of citizens, including those foremost in wealth 
and influence. 

The rest of that week was full of collisions 
which on Friday almost amounted to a riot and 
led the governor's council to consider seriously 
whether the troops ought not to be removed. But 
The "Boston ^^f^re they had settled the question the 
Massacre." grisis cauic ou Mouday evening, March 
5, in an affray before the Custom House on 
King street, when seven of Captain Preston's 
company fired into the crowd, killing five men 
and wounding several others. Two of the victims 
were innocent bystanders. Two were sailors from 
ships lying in the harbour, and they, together with 



THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 75 

the remaining victim, a ropemaker, had been ac- 
tively engaged in the affray. One of the sailors, 
a mulatto or half-breed Indian of gigantic stat- 
ure, named Crispus Attucks, had been especially 
conspicuous. The slaughter of these five men se- 
cured in a moment what so many months of deco- 
rous protest had failed to accomplish. Much more 
serious bloodshed was imminent when Lieutenant- 
governor Hutchinson arrived upon the scene and 
promptly arrested the offending soldiers. The 
next day there was an immense meeting at the 
Old South, and Samuel Adams, at the head of a 
committee, came into the council chamber at the 
Town House, and in the name of three thousand 
freemen sternly commanded Hutchinson to remove 
the soldiers from the town. Before sunset they 
had all been withdrawn to the Castle. When the 
news reached the ears of Parliament there was 
some talk of reinstating them in the town, but 
Colonel Barre cut short the discussion with the 
pithy question, " if the officers agreed in remov- 
ing the soldiers to Castle William, what minister 
will dare to send them back to Boston ? " 

Thus the so-called " Boston Massacre " wrought 
for the king a rebuff which he felt perhaps even 
more keenly than the repeal of the Stamp Act. 
Not only had his troops been peremptorily turned 
out of Boston, but his policy had for the moment 
weakened in its hold upon Parliament. In the 
summer of 1769 the assembly of Virginia adopted 



76 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 

a very important series of resolutions condemning 
the policy of Great Britain and recommending 
united action on the part of the colonies in de- 
fence of their liberties. The governor then dis- 
solved the assembly, whereupon its members met 
in convention at the Raleigh tavern and adopted 
a set of resolves prepared by Washington, strictly 
forbidding importations from England until the 
Townshend acts should be repealed. These re- 
solves were generally adopted by the colonies, and 
presently the merchants of London, finding their 
trade falling off, petitioned Parliament to recon- 
Lord North, sidcr its policy. In January, 1770, Lord 
mimste?, re- Nortli bccame prime minister. In April 
duties ex- all tlic dutics wcrc taken off, except the 

cept ou tea, i • i , i i • • • i 

1770. duty on tea, which the king insisted 

upon retaining, in order to avoid surrendering the 
principle at issue. The effect of even this partial 
concession was to weaken the spirit of opposition 
in America, and to create a division among the 
colonies. In July the merchants of New York 
refused to adhere any longer to the non-impor- 
tation agreement except with regard to tea, and 
they began sending orders to England for va- 
rious sorts of merchandise. Ehode Island and 
New Hampshire also broke the agreement. This 
aroused general indignation, and ships from the 
three delinquent colonies were driven from such 
ports as Boston and Charleston. 

Union among the colonies was indeed only skin 



I THE STAMP ACT, AND REVENUE LAWS. 77 

I deep. The only thing which kept it alive was 
i British aggression. Ahnost every colony y^^^^ ^^ 
had some bone of contention with its "'"*^'^' 
neighbours. At this moment New York and New 
Hampshire were wrangling over the possession of 
! the Green Mountains, and guerrilla warfare was 
going on between Connecticut and Pennsylvania 
in the valley of Wyoming. It was hard to secure 
concerted action about anything. For two years 
after the withdrawal of troops from Boston there 
was a good deal of disturbance in different parts 
of the country ; quarrels between governors and 
their assemblies were kept up with increasing bit- 
terness ; in North Carolina there was an insurrec- 
tion against the governor which was suppressed 
only after a bloody battle near the Cape Fear 
river; in Rhode Island the revenue schooner 
Gaspee was seized and burned, and when an order 
icame from the ministry requiring the offenders to 
be sent to England for trial, the chief -justice of 
Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, refused to obey 
the order. But amid all these disturbances there 
Appeared nothing like concerted action on the 
part of the colonies. In June, 1772, Hutchinson 
said that the union of the colonies seemed to be 
broken, and he hoped it would not be renewed, 
for he believed it meant separation from the 
other-country, and that he regarded as the worst 
>f calamities. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CRISIS. 

The surest way to renew and cement the union 
was to show that the ministry had not relaxed in 
its determination to enforce the princij^le of the 
Townshend acts. This was made clear in August, 
Salaries of l^T^^, whcu it was Ordered that in Mas- 
the judges, sachusctts the judges should henceforth 
be paid by the crown. Popular excitement rose to 
fever heat, and the judges were threatened with 
impeachment should they dare accept a penny 
from the royal treasury. The turmoil was in- 
creased next year by the discovery in London of 
the package of letters which were made to support 
the unjust charge against Hutchinson and some 
of his friends that they had instigated and aided 
the most extreme measures of the ministry. 

In the autumn of 1772 Hutchinson refused to 
call an extra session of the assembly to consider 
what should be done about the judges. Samuel 
Adams then devised a scheme by which the towns 
of Massachusetts could consult with each other 
and agree upon some common course of action in 
case of emergencies. For this purpose each town 
was to appoint a standing committee, and as a 



THE CRISIS. 79 

great part of their work was necessarily done by 
letter they were called " committees of 

-I M fTM • 1 Committees 

correspondence. ihis was the step of cone- 

. . -i-» 1 • spondence. 

that fairly organized the Revolution. 
It was by far the most important of all the steps 
that preceded the Declaration of Independence. 
The committees did their work with great effi- 
ciency and the governor had no means of stopping 
it. They were like an invisible legislature that 
was always in session and could never be dis- 
solved ; and when the old government fell they 
were able to administer affairs until a new govern- 
ment could be set up. In the spring of 1773 
Virginia carried this work of organization a long 
step further, when Dabney Carr suggested and 
carried a motion calling for committees of cor- 
respondence between the several colonies. From 
this point it was a comparatively short step to a 
permanent Continental Congress. 

It happened that these preparations were made 
just in time to meet the final act of aggression 
which brought on the Revolutionary War. The 
Americans had thus far successfully resisted the 
Townsheud acts and secured the repeal of all the 
duties except on tea. As for tea they had plenty, 
but not from England ; they smuggled it from 
Holland in spite of custom-houses and search- 
warrants. Clearly unless the Americans could 
be made to buy tea from England and pay the 
duty on it, the king must own himself defeated. 



80 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Since it appeared that tliey could not be forced 
into doing this, it remained to be seen if they 
could be tricked into doing it. A truly ingenious 
scheme was devised. Tea sent by the East India 
Tea ships sent Company to America had formerly paid 
as a Siai-"^' a duty in some British port on the way. 
enge. This duty was now taken off, so that 

the price of the tea for America might be low- 
ered. The company's tea thus became so cheap 
that the American merchant could buy a pound 
of it and pay the threepence duty beside for less 
than it cost him to smuggle a pound of tea from 
Holland. It was supposed that the Americans 
would of course buy the tea which they could get 
most cheaply, and would thus be beguiled into 
submission to that principle of taxation which 
they had hitherto resisted. Ships laden with tea 
were accordingly sent in the autumn of 1773 to 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston ; 
and consignees were appointed to receive the tea 
in each of these towns. 

Under the guise of a commercial operation, this 
was purely a political trick. It was an insulting 
challenge to the American people, and merited 
the reception which they gave it. They would 
have shown themselves unworthy of their rich 
political heritage had they given it any other. In 
New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston mass- 
meetings of the people voted that the consignees 
should be ordered to resign their offices, and they 



THE CRISIS. 81 

did so. At Philadelphia the tea-ship was met 
and sent back to England before it had come 
within the jurisdiction of the custom-house. At 
Charleston the tea was landed, and as there was 
no one to receive it or pay the duty, it was thrown 
into a damp cellar and left there to spoil. 

In Boston things took a different turn. The 
stubborn courage of Governor Hutchinson pre- 
vented the consignees, two of whom were his own 
sons, from resigning ; the ships arrived and were 
anchored under guard of a committee of citizens ; 
if they were not unloaded within twenty days, the 
custom-house officers were empowered by law to 
seize them and unload them by force ; and having 
once come within the jurisdiction of the custom- 
house, they could not go out to sea with- Howthechai- 
out a clearance from the collector or a ce^fl^^thr' 
pass from the governor. The situation Pa^?y*°"D?c! 
was a difficult one, but it was most nobly ^^' ^"^' 
met by the men of Massachusetts. The excite- 
ment was intense, but the proceedings were char- 
acterized from first to last by perfect quiet and 
decormn. In an earnest and solemn, almost 
prayerful spirit, the advice of all the towns in the 
conmionwealth was sought, and the response was 
unanimous that the tea must on no account what- 
ever be landed. Similar expressions of opinion 
came from other colonies, and the action of Mas- 
sachusetts was awaited with breatliless interest. 
Many town-meetings were held in Boston, and the 



82 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

o\ATier of the ships was ordered to take them away 
without unloading ; but the collector contrived to 
fritter away the time until the nineteenth day, 
and then refused a clearance. On the next day, 
the 16th of December, 1773, seven thousand peo- 
ple were assembled in town-meeting in and around 
the Old South Meeting-House, while the owner 
of the ships was sent out to the governor's house 
at Milton to ask for a pass. It was nightfall when 
he returned without it, and there was then but one 
thing to be done. By sunrise next morning the 
revenue officers would board the ships and unload 
their cargoes, the consignees would go to the cus- 
tom-house and pay the duty, and the king' s scheme 
woidd have been crowned with success. The only 
way to prevent this was to rip open the tea-chests 
and spill their contents into the sea, and this was 
done, according to a preconcerted plan and with- 
out the slightest uproar or disorder, by a small 
party of men disguised as Indians. Among them 
were some of the best of the townsfolk, and the 
chief manager of the proceedings was Samuel 
Adams. The destruction of the tea has often 
been spoken of, especially by British historians, 
as a " riot," but nothing could have been less like 
a riot. It was really the deliberate action of the 
commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the only fit- 
ting reply to the king's insulting trick. It was 
hailed with delight throughout the thirteen colo- 
nies, and there is nothing in our whole history of 



THE CRISIS. 83 

which an educated American should feel more 
proud. 

The effect upon the king and his friends was 
maddening, and events were quickly brought to a 
crisis. In spite of earnest opposition retaliatory 
acts were passed throuo^h Parliament in 

^ * TheRetalia- 

April, 1774. One of these was the Port tory,Acts, 

j^ ^ April, 1774. 

Bill, for shutting up the port of Boston 
and stopping its trade until the people should be 
starved and frightened into paying for the tea 
that had been thrown overboard. Another was 
the Regulating Act, by which the charter of Mas- 
sachusetts was annulled, its free government swept 
away, and a military governor appointed with des- 
potic power like Andros. These acts were to go 
into operation on the 1st of June, and on that 
day Governor Hutchinson sailed for England, in 
the vain hope of persuading the king to adopt a 
milder policy. It was not long before his prop- 
erty was confiscated, like that of other Tories, and 
after six years of exile he died in London. The 
new governor, Thomas Gage, who had long been 
conmiander of the military forces in America, was 
a mild and pleasant man without much strength 
of character. His presence was endured but his 
authority was not recognized in Massachusetts. 
Troops were now quartered again in Boston, but 
they could not prevent the people from treating 
the Regulating Act with open contempt. Courts 
organized under that act were prevented from sit- 



84 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

ting, and councillors were compelled to resign their 
places. The king's authority was everywhere 
quietly but doggedly defied. At the same time 
the stoppage of business in Boston was the cause 
of much distress which all the colonies sought to 
relieve by voluntary contributions of food and 
other needed articles. 

The events of the last twelve months had gone 
further than anything before toward awakening a 
sentiment of union among the people of the colo- 
nies. It was still a feeble sentiment, but it was 
strong enough to make them all feel that Boston 
was suffering in the common cause. The system of 
Continental Corresponding committees now ripened 
meets7sept. ^^^^ ^^^^ Continental Congress, which 
^^^*' held its first meeting at Philadelphia in 

September, 1774. Among the delegates were Sam- 
uel and John Adams, Robert Livingston, John 
Rutledge, John Dickinson, Samuel Chase, Edmund 
Pendleton, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, 
and George Washington. Their action was cau- 
tious and conservative. They confined themselves 
for the present to trying the effect of a candid state- 
ment of grievances, and drew up a Declaration of 
Rights and other papers, which were pronounced 
by Lord Chatham unsurpassed for ability in any 
age or country. In Parliament, however, the 
king's friends were becoming all-powerful, and the 
only effect produced by these papers was to goad 
them toward further attempts at coercion. Mas- 



THE CRISIS. 85 

sachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebel- 
lion, as in truth she was. 

While Samuel Adams was at Philadelphia, the 
lead in Boston was taken by his friend Dr. War- 
ren. In a county convention held at Milton in 
September, Dr. Warren drew up a series of re- 
solves which fairly set on foot the Revolution. 
They declared that the Regulating Act was null 
and void, and that a king who violates the char- 
tered rights of his subjects forfeits their allegiance ; 
they directed the collectors of taxes to refuse to 
pay the money collected to Gage's treasurer ; and 
they threatened retahation in case Gage should 
venture to arrest any one for political 

'^ ^ The Suffolk 

reasons. These bold resolves were Resolves, 

Sept. Iu4. 

adopted by the convention and sanc- 
tioned by the Continental Congress. Next month 
the people of Massachusetts formed a provisional 
government, and began organizing a militia and 
collecting military stores at Concord and other 
inland towns. 

General Gage's position at this time was a try- 
ing one for a man of his temperament. In an 
unguarded moment he had assured the king that 
four regiments ought to be enough to bring Mas- 
sachusetts into an attitude of penitence. Now 
Massachusetts was in an attitude of rebellion, 
and he realized that he had not troops enough to 
command the situation. People in England were 
blaming him for not doing something, and late in 



86 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

the winter he received a positive order to arrest 
Samuel Adams and his friend John Hancock, then 
at the head of the new provisional government of 
Massachusetts, and send them to England to be 
tried for high treason. On the 18th of April, 
1775, these gentlemen were staying at a friend's 
house in Lexington ; and Gage that evening sent 
out a force of 800 men to seize the military stores 
accumulated at Concord, with instructions to stop 
on the way at Lexington and arrest Adams and 
Hancock. But Dr. Warren divined the purpose 
of the movement, and his messenger, Paul Re- 
vere, succeeded in forewarning the peoi3le, so 
that by the time the troops arrived at Lexington 
the birds were flown. The soldiers fired into a 
company of militia on Lexington common and 
slew eight or ten of their number ; but by the 
time they reached Concord the country was fairly 
Battle of aroused and armed yeomanry were com- 
Apru^S"' ^^& upon the scene by hundreds. In a 
^^^^' sharp skirmish the British were defeated 

and, without having accomplished any of the ob- 
jects of their expedition, began their retreat 
toward Boston, hotly pursued by the farmers who 
fired from behind walls and trees after the Indian 
fashion. A reinforcement of 1200 men at Lex- 
ington saved the routed troops from destruction, 
but the numbers of their assailants grew so rap- 
idly that even this larger force barely succeeded 
in escaping capture. At sunset the British reached 



THE CRISIS. 87 

Charlestown after a march wliich was a series of 
skirmislies, leaving nearly 300 of their number 
killed or wounded along the road. By that time 
yeomanry from twenty-three townships had joined 
in the pursuit. The alarm spread like wildfire 
through New England, and fresh bands of militia 
arrived every hour. Within three days Israel 
Putnam and Benedict Arnold had come from 
Connecticut and John Stark from New Hamp- 
shire, a cordon of 16,000 men was drawn around 
Boston, and the siege of that town was begun. 

The belligerent feeling in New England had 
now grown so strong as to show itself in an act 
of offensive warfare. On the 10th of May, just 
three weeks after Lexington, the fort- 

rry 1 /^ n • Capture of 

resses at Ticonderos^a and Crown Jromt, Ticonderoga, 

. . . May 10, 1775. 

controllino- the line of communication 
between New York and Canada, were surprised 
and captured by men from the Green Mountains 
and Connecticut valley under Ethan Allen and 
Seth Warner. The Congress, which met on that 
same day at Philadelphia, showed some reluctance 
in sanctioning an act so purely offensive ; but in 
its choice of a president the spirit of defiance 
toward Great Britain was plainly shown. John 
[Hancock, whom the British commander-in-chief 
1 was under stringrent orders to arrest and send over 
to Eno^land to be tried for treason, was chosen 
to that eminent position on the 24th of May. 
jThis showed that the preponderance of sentiment 



88 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

in the country was in favour of supporting the 
New England colonies in the armed struggle into 
which they had drifted. This was still further 
shown two days later, when Congress in the name 
of the " United Colonies of America " assumed 
the direction of the rustic army of New England 
men engaged in the siege of Boston. As Con- 
gress was absolutely penniless and had no power 
to lay taxes, it proceeded to borrow £6000 for the 
purchase of gunpowder. It called for ten com- 
panies of riflemen from Virginia, Maryland, and 
Pennsylvania, to reinforce what was henceforth 
known as the Continental army ; and on the 15th 
Washin ton ^^ Juuc it appointed George Washing- 
Smiiland**^ tou commandcr-in-chief. The choice of 
june^Sf' Washington was partly due to the gen- 
^^^^' eral confidence in his ability and in his 

lofty character. In the French War he had won 
a military reputation higher than that of any 
other American, and he was already commander- 
in-chief of the forces of Virginia. But the choice 
was also partly due to sound political reasons. 
The Massachusetts leaders, especially Samuel 
Adams and his cousin John, were distrusted by 
some people as extremists and fire-eaters. They 
wished to bring about a declaration of independ- 
ence, for they believed it to be the only possible 
cure for the evils of the time. The leaders in 
other colonies, upon which the hand of the Brit- 
ish government had not borne so heavily, had not 



THE CRISIS. 89 

yet advanced quite so far as this. Most of them 
believed that the king could be brought to terms ; 

i they did not realize that he would never give way 
because it was politically as much a life and death 
struggle for him as for them. Washington was 

I not yet clearly in favour of independence, nor was 
Jefferson, who a twelvemonth hence was to be en- 

I gaged in writing the Declaration. It is doubtful 
if any of the leading men as yet agreed with the 
Adamses, except Dr. Franklin, who had just re- 
turned from England after his ten years' stay 
there, and knew very well how little hope was to 
be placed in conciliatory measures. The Adamses, 
therefore, like wise statesmen, were always on 
their guard lest circumstances should drive Mas- 
sachusetts in the path of rebellion faster than the 
sister colonies were likely to keep pace with her. 
This was what the king above all things wished, 
and by the same token it was what they especially 
dreaded and sought to avoid. To appoint G jorge 
Washington to the chief command was to go a 
long way toward irrevocably committing Virginia 
to the same cause with Massachusetts, and John 
Adams was foremost in urging the appointment. 
Its excellence was obvious to every one, and we 
hear of only two persons that were dissatisfied. 
One of these was John Hancock, who coveted 
military distinction and was vain enough to think 
himself fit for almost any position. The other 
was Charles Lee, a British officer who had served 



90 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

in America in the French War and afterward 
wandered about Europe as a soldier of 
fortune. He had returned to America 
in 1773 in the hope of playing a leading part 
here. He set himself up as an authority on mil- 
itary questions, and pretended to be a zealous 
lover of liberty. He was really an unprincipled 
charlatan for whom the kindest thing that can be 
said is that perhaps he was slightly insane. He 
had hoped to be appointed to the chief command, 
and was disgusted when he found himself placed 
second among the four major-generals. The first 
major-general was Artemas Ward of Massachu- 
setts ; the third was Philip Schuyler of New 
York ; the fourth was Israel Putnam of Connec- 
ticut. Eight brigadier-generals were appointed, 
among whom we may here mention Richard Mont- 
gomery of New York, William Heath of Massa- 
chusetts, John Sullivan of New Hampshire, and 
Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island. The adju- 
tant-general, Horatio Gates, was an Englishman 
who had served in the French War, and since then 
had lived in Virginia. 

While Congress was appointing officers and 
making regulations for the Continental army, re- 
inforcements for the British had landed in Boston, 
making their army 10,000 strong. The new 
troops were commanded by General William 
Howe, a Whig who disapproved of the king's 
policy. With him came Sir Henry Clinton and 



THE CRISIS. 91 

John Burgoyne, who were more in sympathy with 
the king. Howe and Burgoyne were members of 
Parliament. On the arrival of these reinforce- 
ments Gage prepared to occupy the heights in 
Charlestown known as Breed's and Bunker's hills. 
These heights commanded Boston, so that hostile 
batteries placed there would make it necessary for 
the British to evacuate the town. On the night 
of June 16, the Americans anticipated Gage in 
seizing the heights, and began erecting fortifica- 
tions on Breed's Hill. It was an exposed position 
for the American force, which might easily have 
been cut off and captured if the British had gone 
around by sea and occupied Charlestown Neck in 
the rear. The British preferred to storm the 
American works. In two desperate as- ^^^^^^ ^^ 
saults, on the afternoon of the 17th, J;\',;^'i^f^"' 
they were repulsed with the loss of one- ^'^^' 
third of their number ; and the third assault suc- 
ceeded only because the Americans were not sup- 
plied with powder. By driving the Americans 
back to Winter Hill, the British won an impor- 
tant victory and kept their hold upon Boston. 
The moral effect of the battle, however, was in 
favour of the Americans, for it clearly indicated 
that under proper circumstances they might ex- 
hibit a power of resistance which the British 
would find it impossible to overcome. It was with 
George III. as with Pyrrhus : he could not afford 
to win many victories at such cost, for his supply 



92 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

of soldiers for America was limited, and liis only- 
hope of success lay in inflicting heavy blows. In 
winning Bunker Hill his troops were only holding 
their own ; the siege of Boston was not raised for 
a moment. 

The practical effect upon the British army was 
to keep it quiet for several months. General 
Howe, who presently superseded Gage, was a 
brave and well-trained soldier, but slothful in 
temperament. His way was to strike a blow, and 
then wait to see what would come of it, hoping no 
doubt that political affairs might soon take such 
a turn as to make it unnecessary to go on with 
this fratricidal war. This was fortunate for the 
Americans, for when Washington took command 
of the army at Cambridge on the 3d of July, he 
saw that little or nothing could be done with that 
army until it should be far better organized, dis- 
ciplined, and equipped, and in such work he found 
enough to occupy him for several months. 

Meanwhile Congress, at the instance of John 
Dickinson of Pennsylvania and John Jay of New 
York, decided to try the effect of one more candid 
statement of affairs, in the form of a petition to 
Last petition ^^^ ^ii^g' ^his paper reached London 
and'lL^^^' on the 14th of August, but the king 
answer. rcfuscd to reccivc it, although it was 
signed by the delegates as separate individuals 
and not as members of an unauthorized or revolu- 
tionary body. His only answer was a proclama^ 



THE CRISIS. 93 

tion dated August 23, in which he called for 
volunteers to aid in putting down the rebellion in 
America. At the same time he opened negotia- 
tions with the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke 
of Brunswick, and other petty German princes, 
and succeeded in hiring 20,000 troops to be sent 
to fight against his American subjects. When 
the news of this reached America it produced a 
profound eifect. Perhaps nothing done in that 
year went so far toward destroying the lingering 
sentiment of loyalty. 

In the spring Congress had hesitated about en- 
couraging offensive operations. In the course of 
the summer it was ascertained that the governor 
of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, was planning an 
invasion of northern New York and hoping to 
obtain the cooperation of the Six Nations and the 
Tories of the Mohawk valley. Congress accord- 
ingly decided to forestall him by invad- 

« i^ 1 rT\ ^^ f ' • Americans 

mg Canada. Iwo lines or invasion invade can- 
were adopted. Montgomery descended 1775-juue, 
Lake Champlain with 2000 men, and 
after a campaign of two months captured Mon- 
treal on the 12th of November. At the same 
time Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan set out 
from Cambridge with 1200 men, and made their 
way through the wilderness of Maine, up the val- 
ley of the Kennebec and down that of the Chau- 
diere, coming out upon the St. Lawrence opposite 
Quebec on the 13th of November. This long 



94 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

march through the primeval forest and over 
rugged and trackless mountains was one of the 
most remarkable exploits of the war. It cost the 
lives of 200 men, but besides this the rear-guard 
gave out and went back to Cambridge, so that 
when Arnold reached Quebec he had only 700 
men, too few for an attack upon the town. After 
Montgomery joined him, it was decided to carry 
the works by storm, but in the unsuccessful as- 
sault on December 31, Montgomery was killed, 
Arnold disabled, and Morgan taken prisoner. 
During the winter Carleton was reinforced until 
he was able to recapture Montreal. The Amer- 
icans were gradually driven back, and by June, 
1776, had retreated to Crown Point. Carleton 
then resumed his preparations for invading New 
York. 

While the northern campaign was progressing 
thus unfavourably, the British were at length 
driven from Boston. Howe had unaccountably 
neglected to occupy Dorchester heights, which 
Washington Commanded the town ; and Washington, 
tonrM^?ch after waiting till a sufficient number of 
17, 1776. heavy guns could be collected, advanced 
on the night of March 4 and occupied them with 
2000 men. His position was secure. The British 
had no alternative but to carry it by storm or 
retire from Boston. Not caring to repeat the ex- 
periment of Bunker Hill, they embarked on the 
17th of March and sailed to Halifax, where they 



THE CRISIS. 95 

busied themselves in preparations for an expedi- 
tion against New York. Late in April Washing- 
ton transferred his headquarters to New York, 
where he was able to muster about 8000 men for 
its defence. Thus the line of the Hudson river 
was now threatened with attack at both its upper 
and lower ends. 

This change in the seat of war marks the 
change that had come over the political situation. 
It was no longer merely a rebellious Massachu- 
setts that must be subdued ; it was a continental 
Union that must be broken up. During the win- 
ter and spring the sentiment in favour of a dec- 
laration of independence had rapidly grown in 
strength. In November, 1775, Lord 
Dunmore, royal governor of Virorinia, moreinVir- 
sought to intimidate the revolutionary 
party by a proclamation offering freedom to such 
slaves as would enlist under the king's banner. 
This aroused the country against Dunmore, and 
in December he was driven from Norfolk and 
took refuge in a ship of war. On New Year's 
Day he bombarded the town and laid it in ashes 
from one end to the other. This violence rapidly 
made converts to the revolutionary party, and 
further lessons were learned from the experience 
of their neighbours in North Carolina. 

That colony was the scene of fierce contests 
between Whigs and Tories. As early as May 31, 
1775, the patriots of Mecklenburg county had 



96 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 

adopted resolutions pointing toward independence 
and forwarded them to their delegates in Con- 
gress, who deemed it impolitic, however, to lay 
them before that body. Josiah Martin, royal 
governor of North Carolina, was obliged to flee 
on board ship in July. He busied himself with 
plans for the complete subjugation of the south- 
ern colonies, and corresponded with the govern- 
ment in London, as well as with his Tory friends 
ashore. In pursuance of these plans Sir Henry 
Clinton, with 2000 men, was detached in January, 
1776, from the army in Boston, and sent 

North Caro- i -xt i /-^ t n t 

Una and Yir^ to the JN orth Carolina coast ; a neet under 

giuia. 

Sir Peter Parker was sent from Ireland 
to meet him; and a force of 1600 Tories was 
gathered to assist him as soon as he should arrive. 
But the scheme utterly failed. The fleet was 
buffeted by adverse winds and did not arrive; 
the Tories were totally defeated on February 27 
in a sharp fight at Moore's Creek ; and Clinton, 
thus deprived of his allies, deemed it most pru- 
dent for a while to keep his troops on shipboard. 
On the 12th of April the patriots of North Caro- 
lina instructed their delegates in Congress to eon- 
cur with other delegates in a declaration of inde- 
pendence. On the 14th of May Virginia went 
further, and instructed her delegates to propose 
such a declaration. South Carolina, Georgia, and 
Rhode Island expressed a willingness to concur in 
any measures which Congress might think best 



THE CRISIS, 97 

calculated to promote the general welfare. In 
the course of May town-meetings throughout Mas- 
sachusetts expressed opinions unanimously in fa- 
vour of independence. 

Massachusetts had already, as long ago as July, 
1775, framed a new government in which the king 
was not recognized ; and her example had been 
followed by New Hampshire in January, 1776, 
and by South Carolina in March. Now on the 
15th of May Congress adopted a resolution ad- 
vising all the other colonies to form new gov- 
ernments, because the king had "withdrawn his 
protection " from the American people, and all 
governments deriving their powers from him were 
accordingly set aside as of no account. This res- 
olution was almost equivalent to a declaration of 
independence, and it was adopted only after hot 
debate and earnest opposition from the middle 
colonies. 

On the 7th of June, in accordance with the 
instructions of May 14 from Virginia, Rjchard 
Eichard Henry Lee submitted to Con- SoSontn"'" 
gress the following resolutions : — Congress. 

" That these United Colonies are, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent States, that 
they are absolved from all allegiance to the Brit- 
ish Crown, and that all political connection be- 
tween them and the State of Great Britain is, and 
ought to be, totally dissolved ; 

" That it is expedient forthwith to take the 



98 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

most effectual measures for forming foreign alli- 
ances ; 

" That a plan of confederation be prepared and 
transmitted to the respective colonies for their 
consideration and approbation." 

This motion of Virginia, in which Independ- 
ence and Union went hand in hand, was at once 
seconded by Massachusetts, as represented by- 
John Adams. It was opposed by John Dickinson 
and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, and by Rob- 
ert Livingston of New York, on the ground that 
the people of the middle colonies were not yet 
ready to sever the connection with the mother 
country. As the result of the discussion it was 
decided to wait three weeks, in the hope of hear- 
ing from all those colonies which had not yet de- 
clared themselves. 

The messages from those colonies came promptly 
enough. As for Connecticut and New Hamp- 
shire, there could be no doubt ; and their declara- 
tions for independence, on the 14th and 15th of 
June respectively, were simply dilatory expres- 
sions of their sentiments. They were late, only 
because Connecticut had no need to form a new 
government at all, while New Hampshire had 
formed one as long ago as January. Their sup- 
port of the proposed declaration of independence 
was already secured, and it was only in the formal 
announcement of it that they were somewhat 
belated. But with the middle colonies it was dif- 



THE CRISIS. 99 

ferent. There the parties were more evenly bal- 
anced, and it was not until the last moment that 
the decision was clearly pronounced. This was 
not because they were less patriotic than the other 
colonies, but because their direct grievances were 
fewer, and up to this moment they had hoped that 
the quarrel was one which a change of ministry 
in Great Britain might adjust. In the earlier 
stages of the quarrel they had been ready enough 
to join hands with Massachusetts and Virginia. 
It was only on this irrevocable decision as to in- 
dependence that they were slow to act. 

But in the course of the month of June their 
responses to the invitation of Congress came in, 
— from Delaware on the 14th, from New Jersey 
on the 2 2d, from Pennsylvania on the 24th, from 
Maryland on the 28th. This action of ^.^^ middle 
the middle colonies was avowedly based ''oio^^es. 
on the ground that, in any event, united action 
was the thing most to be desired ; so that, what- 
ever their individual preferences might be, they 
were ready to subordinate them to the interests of 
the whole country. The broad and noble spirit 
of patriotism shown in their resolves is worthy of 
no less credit than the bold action of the colonies 
which, under the stimulus of direct aggression, 
first threw down the gauntlet to George III. 

On the 1st of July, when Lee's motion was 
taken up in Congress, all the colonies had been 
heard from except New York. The circumstances 



100 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

of this central colony were peculiar. We have 
already seen that the Tory party was especially 
strong in New York. Besides this, her position 
Difficulties in ^^^ morc cxposcd to attack on all 

New York. g^^^^^g ^^L^^ ^J^j^^ ^^f ^j^y ^^j^gj. g^^^^g^ ^g 

the military centre of the Union, her territory was 
sure to be the scene of the most desperate fighting. 
She was already threatened with invasion from 
Canada. As a frontier state she was exposed to 
the incursions of the terrible Iroquois, and as a 
seaboard state she was open to the attack of the 
British fleet. At that time, moreover, the popu- 
lation of New York numbered only about 170,000, 
and she ranked seventh among the thirteen colo- 
nies. The military problem was therefore much 
harder for New York than for Massachusetts or 
Virginia. Her risks were greater than those of 
any other colony. For these reasons the Whig 
party in New York found itself seriously ham- 
pered in its movements, and the 1st of July ar- 
rived before their delegates in Congress had been 
instructed how to vote on the question of inde- 
pendence. 

Richard Henry Lee had been suddenly called 
home to Virginia by the illness of his wife, and 
so the task of defending his motion fell upon 
John Adams who had seconded it. His speech 
on that occasion was so able that Thomas Jeffer- 
son afterward spoke of him as " the Colossus of 
that debate." As Congress sat with closed doors 



THE CRISIS. 101 

and no report was made of the speech, we have 
no definite knowledge of its arguments. Fifty 
years afterwards, shortly after John Adams's 
death, Daniel Webster wrote an imaginary speech 
containing what in substance he might have said. 
The principal argument in opposition was made 
by John Dickinson, who thought that before the 
Americans finally committed themselves to a 
deadly struggle with Great Britain, they ought to 
establish some stronger government than the Con- 
tinental Congress, and ought also to secure a 
promise of help from some such country as France. 
This advice was cautious, but it was not sound 
and practical. War had already begun, and if 
we had waited to agree upon some permanent 
kind of government before committing all the col- 
onies to a formal defiance of Great Britain, there 
was great danger that the enemy might succeed in 
breaking up the Union before it was really formed. 
Besides, it is not likely that France would ever 
have decided to go to war in our behalf until we 
had shown that we were able to defend ourselves. 
It was now a time when the boldest advice was 
the safest. 

During this debate on the 1st of July Congress 
was sitting as a committee of the whole. 

The l^QCXSLTBr 

and at the close of the day a preliminary tion of inde- 

^ T •! 11 1 • pendence, 

vote was taken. Like all the votes m July i to 4, 

the Continental Congress, it was taken 

by colonies. The majority of votes in each 



102 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

delegation determined the vote of that colony. 
Each colony had one vote, and two-thirds of the 
whole number, or nine colonies against four, were 
necessary for a decision. On this occasion the 
New York delegates did not vote at all, because 
they had no instructions. One delegate from Del- 
aware voted yea and another nay ; the third dele- 
gate, Caesar Rodney, had been down in the lower 
counties of his little state, arguing against the 
loyalists. A special messenger had been sent to 
hurry him back, but he had not yet arrived, and 
so the vote of Delaware was divided and lost. 
Pennsylvania declared in the negative by four 
votes against three. South Carolina also declared 
in the negative. The other nine colonies all voted 
in the affirmative, and so the resolution received 
just votes enough to carry it. A very little more 
opposition would have defeated it, and would 
probably have postponed the declaration for sev- 
eral weeks. 

The next day Congress took the formal vote 
upon the resolution. Mr. Rodney had now ar- 
rived, so that the vote of Delaware was given in 
the affirmative. John Dickinson and Robert 
Morris stayed away, so that Pennsylvania was now 
secured for the affirmative by three votes against 
two. Though Dickinson and Morris were so slow 
to believe it necessary or prudent to declare in- 
dependence, they were firm supporters of the dec- 
laration after it was made. Without Morris, in- 



THE CRISIS. 103 

deed, it is hard to see how the Revolution could 
have succeeded. He was the great financier of 
his time, and his efforts in raising money for the 
support of our hard-pressed armies were wonder- 
ful. 

When the turn of the South Carolina delegates 
came they changed their votes in order that the 
declaration might go forth to the world as the 
unanimous act of the American people. The 
question was thus settled on the 2d of July, and 
the next thing was to decide upon the form of the 
declaration, which Jefferson, who was weak in de- 
bate but strong with the pen, had already drafted. 
The work was completed on the 4th of July, when 
Jefferson's draft was adopted and published to 
the world. Five days afterward the state of New 
York declared her approval of these proceedings. 
The Rubicon was crossed, and the thirteen Eng- 
lish colonies had become the United States of 
America. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 1 

"While these things were going on at Philadel- 
phia, the coast of South Carolina, as well as the 
harbour of New York, was threatened by the 
British fleet. When the delegates from South 
Carolina gave their votes on the question of in- 
dependence, they did not know but the revolu- 
tionary government in Charleston might already 
have been taken captive or scattered in flight. 
After a stormy voyage Sir Peter Parker's squad- 
ron at length arrived off Cape Fear early in May, 
and joined Sir Henrys Clinton. Along with Sir 
Lord Corn- P^tcr Came an officer worthy of especial 
waiiis. mention. Charles, Earl Cornwallis, was 

then thirty-eight years old. He had long served 
with distinction in the British army, and had 
lately reached the grade of lieutenant-general. In 
politics he was a New Whig, and had on several 
occasions signified his disapproval of the king's 
policy toward America. As a commander his 
promptness and vigour contrasted strongly with 
the slothfulness of General Howe. Cornwallis 
was the ablest of the British generals engaged 
in the Revolutionary War, and among the public 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 105 

men of his time there were few, if any, more 
high-minded, disinterested, faithful, and pure. 
After the war was over, he won great fame as 
governor-general of India from 1786 to 1794. He 
was afterward raised to the rank of marquis and 
appointed lord - lieutenant of Ireland. In 1805 
he was sent out again to govern India, and died 
there. 

On the arrival of the fleet it was decided to at- 
tack and capture Charleston, and overthrow the 
new government there. General Charles Lee was 
sent down by Congress to defend the city, but 
the South Carolina patriots proved quite able to 
take care of themselves. On Sullivan's Island in 
Charleston harbour Colonel William Moultrie 
built a low elastic fortress of palmetto ^^^^^^ ^^ 
logs supported by banks of sand and ^JeJ'^me^" 
mounting several heavy guns. In the ^s, me. 
cannonade which took place on the 28th of June 
this rude structure escaped with little injury, while 
its guns inflicted such serious damage upon the 
fleet that the British were obliged to abandon for 
the present all thought of taking Charleston. In 
the course of July they sailed for New York har- 
bour to reinforce General Howe. On the 12th of 
that month the general's brother, Richard, Lord 
Howe, arrived at Staten Island to take the chief 
command of the fleet. He was one of the ablest 
seamen of his time, and was a favourite with his 
sailors, by whom, on account of his swarthy com- 



106 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

plexion, he was familiarly known as " Black 
Dick." Lord Howe and his brother were author- 
ized to offer terms to the Americans and endeavour 
to restore peace by negotiation. It was not easy, 
however, to find any one in America with whom 
Lord Howe's *^ negotiate. Lord Howe was sincerely 
w^?dconcii- dcsirous of making peace and doing 
iation. something to heal the troubles which had 

brought on the war ; and he seems to have sup- 
posed that some good might be effected by private 
interviews with leading Americans. To send a 
message to Congress was, of course, not to be 
thought of ; for that would be equivalent to rec- 
ognizing Congress as a body entitled to speak 
for the American people. He brought with him 
an assurance of amnesty and pardon for all such 
rebels as would lay down their arms, and decided 
that it would be best to send it to the American 
commander ; but as it was not proper to recog- 
nize the military rank which had been conferred 
upon Washington by a revolutionary body, he ad- 
dressed his message to " George Washington, 
Esq.," as to a private citizen. When Washing- 
ton refused to receive such a message, his lord- 
ship could think of no one else to approach except 
the royal governors. But they had all fled, ex- 
cept Governor Franklin of New Jersey, who was 
under close confinement in East Windsor, Con- 
necticut. All British authority in the United 
States liad disappeared, and there was no one for 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 107 

Lord Howe to negotiate with, unless he should 
bethink himself of some way of laying his case 
before Congress. 

Military operations were now taken up in ear- 
nest by the British, and were briskly carried on 
for nearly six months. They were for the most 
part concentrated upon the state of New York. 
Before 1776 it was Massachusetts that was the 
chief object of military measures on the part of 
the British. That was the colony that since the 
summer of 1774 had defied the king's 
troops and set at naught the authority tiie^British 
of Parliament ; and the first object of piai.^die to 
the British was to make an example of the colonies 

^ 1 1 IT intheDeda- 

that colony, to suppress the rebellion ration of in- 

. dependence. 

there, and to reinstate the royal govern- 
ment. The king believed that it would not take 
long to do this, and there is some reason for sup- 
posing that if he had succeeded in humbling 
Massachusetts, he would have been ready to listen 
to Hutchinson's request that the vindictive acts 
of April, 1774, should be repealed and the char- 
ter restored. At all events, he seems to have felt 
confident that things could soon be made so quiet 
that Hutchinson could return and resume the 
office of grovernor. If the kinar and his friends 
had not entertained such ill-founded hopes, they 
would not have been so ready to resort to violent 
measures. They made the fatal mistake of sup- 
posing that such a man as Samuel Adams repre- 



108 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

sented only a small party and not the majority of 
the people. They had also supposed that the 
other colonies would not make common cause 
with Massachusetts. But now, before they had 
accomplished any of their objects, and while their 
troops had even been driven from Boston, they 
found that the rebellion had spread through the 
whole country. They had a belligerent govern- 
ment to confront, and must now enter upon the 
task of conquering the United States. 

The first and most obvious method of attempt- 
ing this was to strike at New York as 
Brifishcon- tlic military centre. In such a plan 
their attack everything seemed to favour the British. 
state of New Tlic statc was Comparatively weak in 

fork. , . ^ ^ -^ , 

population and resources ; a large pro- 
portion of the people were Tories ; and close at 
hand on the frontier, which was then in the Mo- 
hawk valley, were the most formidable Indians 
on the continent. These Iroquois had long been 
under the influence of the famous Sir William 
Johnson, of Johnson Hall, near Schenectady, and 
his son Sir John Johnson. Their principal sa- 
chem, Joseph Brant, or Thayendanegea, was con- 
nected by the closest bonds of friendship with the 
Johnsons, and the latter were staunch Tories. It 
might reasonably be expected that the entire force 
of these Indians could be enlisted on the British 
side. The work for the regular army seemed thus 
to be reduced to the single problem of capturing 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 109 

the city of New York and obtaining full control 
of the Hudson river. 

If this could be done, the United States would 
be cut in two. As the Americans had no ships of 
war, they could not dispute the British command 
of the water. There was no way in which the 
New England states could hold communication 
with the South except across the southern part of 
the state of New York. To gain this central posi- 
tion would thus be to deal a fatal blow to the 
American cause, and it seemed to the British gov- 
ernment that, with the forces now in the field, this 
ought easily to be accomplished. General Carle- 
ton was ready to come down from the north by 
way of Lake Champlain, with 12,000 men, and 
General Schuyler could scarcely muster half as 
many to oppose him. On Staten Island there 
were more than 25,000 British troops ready to 
attack New York, while Washington's utmost ex- 
ertions had succeeded in getting together only 
about 18,000 men for the defence of the city. 
The American army was as yet very j)oor in 
organization and discipline, badly equipped, and 
scantily fed ; and it seemed very doubtful whether 
it could long keep the field in the presence of 
superior forces. 

But in spite of all these circumstances, so 
favourable to the British, there was one obstacle 
to their success upon which at first they did not 
sufficiently reckon. That obstacle was furnished 



110 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

by the genius and character of the wonderful man 
who commanded the American army. 
mmta^^ °" ^ In Washington were combined all the 
highest qualities of a general, — dog- 
ged tenacity of purpose, endless fertility in re- 
source, sleepless vigilance, and unfailing courage. 
No enemy ever caught him unawares, and he never 
let slip an opportunity of striking back. He had 
a rare geographical instinct, always knew where 
the strongest position was, and how to reach it. He 
was a master of the art of concealing his own 
plan and detecting his adversary's. He knew 
better than to hazard everything upon the result 
of a single contest, and because of the enemy's 
superior force he was so often obliged to refuse 
battle that some of his impatient critics called him 
slow ; but no general was ever quicker in dealing 
heavy blows when the proper moment arrived. 
He was neither unduly elated by victory nor dis- 
couraged by defeat. When all others lost heart 
he was bravest ; and at the very moment when 
ruin seemed to stare him in the face, he was craft- 
ily preparing disaster and confusion for the enemy. 
To the highest qualities of a military com- 
mander there were united in Washington those of 
a political leader. From early youth he possessed 
the art of winning men's confidence. He was 
simple without awkwardness, honest without blunt- 
ness, and endowed with rare discretion and tact. 
His temper was fiery and on occasion he could 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. Ill 

use pretty strong language, but anger or disap- 
pointment was never allowed to disturb the justice 
and kindness of his judgment. Men felt them- 
selves safe in putting entire trust in his head and 
his heart, and they were never deceived. Thus 
he soon obtained such a hold upon the people as 
few statesmen have ever possessed. It was this 
grand character that, with his clear intelligence 
and unflagging industry, enabled him to lead the 
nation triumphantly through the perils of the 
Revolutionary War. He had almost every im- 
aginable hardship to contend with, — envious ri- 
vals, treachery and mutiny in the camp, interfer- 
ence on the part of Congress, jealousies between 
the states, want of men and money ; yet all these 
difficulties he vanquished. Whether victorious or 
defeated on the field, he baffled the enemy in the 
first year's great campaign and in the second 
year's, and then for four years more upheld the 
cause until heart-sickening delay was ended in 
glorious triumph. It is very doubtful if without 
Washington the struggle for independence would 
have succeeded as it did. Other men were im- 
portant, he was indispensable. 

The first great campaign began, as might have 
been expected, with defeat on the field. In order 
to keep possession of the city of New York it was 
necessary to hold Brooklyn Heights. That was a 
dangerous position for an American force, because 
it was entirely separated from New York by deep 



112 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

water, and could thus be cut off from the rest of 
the American army by the enemy's fleet. It was 
necessary, however, for Washington either to oc- 
cupy Brooklyn Heights or to give up the city of 
New York without a struggle. But the latter 
course was out of the question. It would never 
do to abandon the Whigs in New York to the 
tender mercies of the Tories, without at 

Battle of 1 n T o 1 ... 

Long Island, least OUC gOOQ light. OO tllC pOSltlOU lli 

Brooklyn must be fortified, and there 
was perhaps one chance in a hundred that, through 
some blunder of the enemy, we might succeed in 
holding it. Accordingly 9000 men were stationed 
on Brooklyn Heights under Putnam, who threw 
forward about half of this force, under Sullivan 
and Stirling, to defend the southern approaches 
through the rugged country between Gowanus 
bay and Bedford. On the 22d of August General 
Howe crossed from Staten Island to Gravesend 
bay with 20,000 men, and on the 27th he defeated. 
Sullivan and Stirling in what has ever since been 
known as the battle of Long Island. About 400 
men were killed and wounded on each side, and 
1000 Americans, including both generals, were 
taken captive. A more favourable result for the 
Americans was not to be expected, as the British 
outnumbered them four to one, and could there- 
fore march where they pleased and turn the Amer- 
ican flank without incurring the slightest risk. 
The wonder is, not that 5000 half-trained soldiers 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 113 

were defeated by 20,000 veterans, but that they 
should have given General Howe a good day's 
work in defeating them. 

The American forces were now withdrawn into 
their works on Brooklyn Heights, and Howe ad- 
vanced to besiege them. During the next two 
days Washington collected boats and on 
the nio^ht oi the 29th conveyed the army ton's skii- 

■I -I-. -!-». XT Ar 1 ful retreat. 

across the East River to Jacw York. 
With the enemy's fleet patrolling the harbour 
^nd their army watching the works, this was a 
most remarkable performance. To this day one 
cannot understand, unless on the supposition that 
the British were completely dazed and moon- 
struck, how Washington could have done it. 

People were much disheartened by the defeat 
on Long Island and the immediate prospect of 
losing New York. Lord Howe turned his 
thoughts once more to negotiation, and at length, 
on Sei3tember 11, succeeded in obtaining an in- 
formal interview with -Franklin, John Adams, 
and Edward Rutledge. But nothing was accom- 
plished, and seventeen eventful months elapsed 
before the British again seriously tried negotia- 
tion. General Howe had extended his lines north- 
ward, and on the 15th his army crossed ^^^^ ^^^^^ 
the East Eiver in boats, and landed ^fpl^iSf' 
near the site of Thirty-Fourth street. ^^^^• 
On the same day Washington completed the work 
of evacuating the city. His army was drawn up 



114 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

across the island from the mouth of Harlem river 
to Fort Washington, and over on the Jersey side 
of the Hudson, opposite Fort Washington, a de- 
taclunent occupied Fort Lee. It was hoj)ed that 
these two forts would be able to prevent British 
ships from going up the Hudson river, but this 
hope soon proved to be delusive. 

On the 16th General Howe tried to break 
through the centre of Washington's position at 
Harlem Heights, but after losing 300 men he 
gave up the attempt, and spent the next three 
weeks in studying the situation. A sad incident 
came now to remind the people of the sternness 
of military law. Nathan Hale, a young graduate 
of Yale College, captain of a company of Con- 
necticut rangers, had been for several days within 
the British lines gathering information. Just as 
he had accomplished his purpose, and was on the 
point of departing with his memoranda, he was 
arrested as a spy and hanged next morning, la- 
menting on the gallows that he had but one life 
to lose for his country. 

As Howe deemed it prudent not to attack 
Washington in front, he tried to get around into 
his rear, and began on October 12 by landing a 
large force at Throg's Neck, in the Sound. But 
Battle of Washington baffled him by changing 
Sain« Oct fi'ont, swinging his left wing northward 
28, 1776. ^g £^j. ^g ^^i^ite Plains. After further 
reflection Howe decided to try a front attack once 



I 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 115 

i more ; on the 28th he assaulted the position al 
, White Plains, and carried one of the outposts, 
I losing twice as many men as the Americans. Not 
wishing' to continue the fight at such a disadvan- 
tage he paused again, and Washington improved 
i the occasion by retiring to a still stronger position 
at Northcastle. These movements had separated 
W^ashington's main body from his right wing at 
Forts Washington and Lee, and Howe now 
changed his plan. Desisting from the attempt 
; against the American main body, he moved south- 
; ward against this exposed wing. 
1 A sad catastrophe now followed, which showed 
f how many obstacles Washington had to contend 
with. It was laiown that Carle ton's army was 
on the way from Canada. Congress was ner- 
vously afraid of losing its hold upon the Hudson 
! river, and Washington accordingly selected W^est 
[ Point as the strongest position upon the river, to 
; be fortified and defended at all hazards. He sent 
; Heath, with 3000 men, to hold the Highland 
I passes, and went up himself to inspect the situa- 
tion and give directions about the new fortifica- 
tions. He left 7000 of his main body at North- 
; castle, in charge of Lee, who had just returned 
from South Carolina. He sent 5000, under Put- 
nam, across the river to Hackensack ; and ordered 
Greene, who had some 5000 men at Forts W^ash- 
ington and Lee, to prepare to evacuate both those 
strongholds and join his forces to Putnam's. 



116 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 



1 



If tliese orders had been carried out, Howe's 
movement against Fort Washington would have 
accomplished but little, for on reaching that place, 
he would have found nothing but empty works, 
as at Brooklyn. The American right wing would 
have been drawn together at Hackensack, and the 
whole army could have been concentrated on 
either bank of the great river, as the occasion 
might seem to require. If Howe should aim at 
the Highlands, it could be kept close to the river 
and cover all the passes. If, on the other hand, 
Howe should threaten the Congress at Philadel- 
phia, the whole army could be collected in New 
Jersey to hold him in check. 

But Washington's orders were not obeyed. 
Congress was so uneasy that it sent word to 
Greene to hold both his forts as long as he could. 
Accordingly he strengthened the garrison at Fort 
Howe takes Washington, just in time for Howe to 
SjtoiTNov overwhelm and capture it, on the 16th 
16,1776. ^£ November, after an obstinate resist- 
ance. In killed and wounded the British loss 
was three times as great as that of the garrison, 
but the Americans were in no condition to afford 
the loss of 3000 men taken prisoners. It was a 
terrible blow. On the 19th Greene barely suc- 
ceeded in escaping from Fort Lee, with his re- 
maining 2000 men, but without his cannon and 
stores. 

Bad as the situation was, however, it did not 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. Ill 

become really alarming until it was complicated 
with the misconduct of General Lee. Washino^- 
ton had returned from West Point on the 14th, 
too late to prevent the catastrophe ; but after all 
it was only necessary for Lee's wing of the army 
to cross the river, and there would be a solid force 
of 14,000 men on the Jersey side, able to con- 
front the enemy on something like equal terms, 
for Howe had to keep a good many of his troops 
in New York. On the 17th Washington ordered 
Lee to come over and join him ; but Lee Treachery of 
disobeyed, and in spite of repeated or- Charles Lee. 
ders from Washington he stayed at Northcastle 
till the 2d of December. General Ward had some 
time since resigned, so that Lee now ranked next 
to Washington. A good many people were find- 
ing fault with the latter for losing the 3000 men 
at Fort Washington, although, as we have seen, 
that was not his fault but the fault of Conofress. 
Lee now felt that if Washington were ruined, he 
would surely become his successor in the command 
of the army, and so, instead of obeying his orders, 
he spent his time in writing letters calculated to 
injure him. 

Lee's disobedience thus broke the army in two, 
and did more for the British than they had been 
able to do for themselves since they Washington's 
started from Staten Island. It was the [hroTgh New 
cause of Washington's flight through ^^^^^^' 
New Jersey, ending on the 8 th of December, when 



118 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 



1 



lie put himself behind the Delaware river, with 
scarcely 3000 men. Here was another difficulty. 
The American soldiers were enlisted for short 
terms, and when they were discouraged, as at 
present, they were apt to insist upon going home 
as soon as their time had expired. It was gener- 
ally believed that Washington's army would thus 
fall to pieces within a few days. Howe did not 
think it worth while to be at the trouble of col- 
lecting boats wherewith to follow him across the 
Delaware. Congress fled to Baltimore. People 
in New Jersey began taking the oath of allegiance 
to the crown. Howe received the news that he 
had been knighted for his victory on Long Island, 
and he returned to New York to celebrate the oc- 
casion. J 
While the case looked so desperate for Wash- 
ington, events at the north had taken a less un- 
favourable turn. Carleton had embarked on 
Lake Champlain early in the autumn with his 
fine army and fleet. Arnold had fitted 

Arnold's na- n n i • i 

vai battle at up a Small flcct to opposc his advaucc, 

Valcour Id- 

and, Oct. 11, and on the 11th of October there had 

1776. 

been a fierce naval battle between the 
two near Valcour Island, in which Arnold was de- 
feated, while Carleton suffered serious damage. 
The British general then advanced upon Ticon- 
deroga, but suddenly made up his mind that the 
season was too late for operations in that latitude. 
Tlie resistance he had encountered seems to have 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 119 

made him despair of achieving any speedy success 
in that quarter, and on the 3d of November he 
started back for Canada, This retreat relieved 
General Schujder at Albany of immediate cause 
for anxiety, and presently he detached seven regi- 
ments to go southward to Washington's assistance. 
On the 2d of December Lee crossed the Hud- 
son with 4000 men, and proceeded slowly to Mor- 
ristown. Just what he designed to do was never 
known, but clearly he had no intention of going 
beyond the Delaware to assist Washington, whom 
he believed to be ruined. Perhaps he thought 
Morristown a desirable position to hold, as it cer- 
tainly was. Whatever Iris plans may have been, 
they were nipped in the bud. For some unknown 
reason he passed the night of the 12th at an un- 
guarded tavern, about four miles from his army ; 
and there he was captured next mornino^ 

Charles Lee 

by a party of British drag-oons, who is captured 

. 1 1 • ^r- 1 • -r» • ^y British 

carried him on to their camp at Prince- dragoons, 

^ Dec. 13, 1776. 

ton. The dragoons were very gleeful 
over this unexpected exploit, but really they could 
not have done the Americans a greater service 
than to rid them of such a worthless creature. 
The capture of Lee came in the nick of time, for 
it set free his men to go to the aid of Washing- 
ton. Even after tliis force and that sent by 
Schuyler had reached the commander-in-chief, he 
found he had only 6000 men fit for duty. 

With this little force Washington instantly 



120 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

took the offensive. It was the turning-point in 
his career and in the history of the Revolutionary- 
War. On Christmas, 1776, and the following 
nine days, all Washington's most brilliant pow- 
ers were displayed. The British centre, 10,000 
Batti strong, lay at Princeton. The principal 

Jrenton,Dec. geucrals, thinking the serious business 
of the war ended, had gone to New 
York. An advanced party of Hessians, 1000 
strong, was posted on the bank of the Delaware 
at Trenton, and another one lower down, at Bur- 
lington. Washington decided to attack both 
these outposts, and arranged his troops accord- 
ingly, but when Christmas night arrived, the 
river was filled with great blocks of floating ice, 
and the only division which succeeded in crossing 
was the one that Washington led in person. It 
was less than 2500 in number, but the moment 
had come when the boldest course was the safest. 
By daybreak Washington had surprised the Hes- 
sians at Trenton and captured them all. The 
outpost at Burlington, on hearing the news, re- 
treated to Princeton. By the 31st Washington 
had got all his available force across to Trenton. 
Some of them were raw recruits just come in to 
replace others who had just gone home. At this ., 
critical moment the army was nearly helpless for 
want of money, and on New Year's morning Rob- I 
ert Morris was knocking at door after door in | 
Philadelphia, waking up his friends to borrow the Ij 





WashljTQfons Campaign's 



NE^^^fL^HS^n' 



1 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 121 

fifty thousand dollars which he sent off to Tren- 
ton before noon. The next day Cornwallis ar- 
rived at Princeton, and taking with him all the 
army, except a rear-guard of 2000 men left to 
protect his communications, came on toward Tren- 
ton. 

When he reached that town, late in the after- 
noon, he found Washington entrenched behind a 
small creek just south of the town, with his back 
toward the Delaware river. " Oho ! " said Corn- 
wallis, " at last we have run down the old fox, and 
we will bag him in the morning." He sent back 
to Princeton, and ordered the rear-guard to come 
up. He expected next morning to cross the 
creek above Washington's right, and then press 
him back against the broad and deep river, and 
compel him to surrender. Cornwallis was by no 
means a careless general, but he seems to have 
gone to bed on that memorable night and slept 
the sleep of the just. 

Washington meanwhile was wide awake. He 
kept his front line noisily at work digging and en- 
trenching, and made a fine show with his camp- 
fires. Then he marched his army to the right 
and across the creek, and got around Carnwallis's 
left wing and into his rear, and so went on gayly 
toward Princeton. At daybreak he en- 

1 1 -r» • • 1 If Battle of 

countered the British rear-gfuard, fousfht Princeton, 

a sharp battle with it and sent it flymg, 

with the loss of one-fourth of its number. The 



122 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

booming gnns aroused Cornwallis too late. To 
preserve his communications with New York, he 
was obliged to retreat with all haste upon New 
Brunswick, while Washington's victorious army 
pushed on and occupied the strong position at 
Morristown. 

There was small hope of dislodging such a gen- 
eral from such a position. But to leave Washing- 
ton in possession of Morristown was to resign to 
him the laurels of this half-year's work. For 
that position guarded the Highlands of the Hud- 
son on the one hand, and the roads to Philadel- 
phia on the other. Except that the British had 
taken the city of New York — which from the 
start was almost a foregone conclusion — they 
were no better off than in July when Lord Howe 
had landed on Staten Island. In nine days the 
tables had been completely turned. The attack 
upon an outpost had developed into a campaign 
which quite retrieved the situation. The ill- 
timed interference of Congress, which had begun 
the series of disasters, was remedied ; the treach- 
ery of Lee was checkmated ; and the cause of 
American Independence, which on Christmas 
Eve had seemed hopeless, was now fairly set on 
its feet. Earlier successes had been local ; this 
was continental. Seldom has so much been done 
with such slender means. 

The American war had begun to awaken inter- 
est in Europe, especially in France, whither 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 123 

Franklin, with Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, had 
been sent to seek for military aid. The 

'' Effects of the 

French government was not yet ready ^mpaign, in 
to make an alliance with the United 
States, but money and arms were secretly sent 
over to Congress. Several young French nobles 
had asked the king's permission to go to America, 
but it was refused, and for the sake of keeping 
up appearances the refusal had something of the 
air of a reprimand. The king did not wish to of- 
fend Great Britain prematurely. One of these 
nobles was Lafayette, then eighteen years of age, 
who fitted up a ship at his own expense, and 
sailed from Bordeaux in April, 1777, in spite of 
the royal prohibition, taking with him Kalb and 
other officers. Lafayette and Kalb, with the 
Poles, Kosciuszko and Pulaski, who had come 
some time before, and the German Steuben, who 
came in the following December, were the five 
most eminent foreigners who received conamissions 
in the Continental army. 

During the winter season at Morristown the ef- 
forts of Washino-ton were directed toward the es- 
rablishment of a regular army to be kept together 
for three years or so long as the war should last. 
Hitherto the military preparations of Congress 
had been absurdly weak. Squads of militia had 
been enlisted for terms of three or six months, 
as if there were any likelihood of the war being 
ended within such a period. While the men thus 



124 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 






kept coming and going, it was difficult either to 
maintain discipline or to carry out any series of 
military operations. Accordingly Con- 
raising an stress now proceeded to call upon the 

army. o a -l 

states for an army of 80,000 men to 
serve during the war. The enlisting was to be 
done by the states, but the money was to be fur- 
nished by Congress. Not half that number of 
men were actually obtained. The Continental 
army was larger in 1777 than in any other year, 
but the highest number it reached was only 
34,820. In addition to these about 34,000 militia 
turned out in the course of the year. An army 
of 80,000 would have taken about the same pro- 
portion of all the fighting men in the country as 
an army of 1,000,000 in our great Civil War. 
Now in our Civil War the Union army grew 
with the occasion until it numbered more than 
1,000,000. But in the Kevolutionary War the 
Continental army was not only never equal to the 
occasion, but it kept diminishing till in 1781 it 
numbered only 13,292. This was because the 
Continental Congress had no power to enforce its 
decrees. It could only ash for troops and it could 
only ash for money. It found just the same diffi- 
culty in getting anything that the British ministry 
and the royal governors used to find, — the very 
same difficulty that led Grenville to devise the 
Stamp Act. Everything had to be talked over in 
thirteen different legislatures, one state would 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 125 

f 

I wait to see* what another was going to do, and 
meanwhile Washington was expected to fight bat- 
tles before his army was fit to take the field. 
f Something was gained, no doubt, by Congress 
I furnishing the money. But as Congress could 
i not tax anybody, it had no means of raising a rev- 
I enue, except to beg, borrow, or issue its promis- 
sory notes, the so-called Continental paper cur- 
rency. 

While Congress was trying to raise an adequate 
I army, the British ministry laid its plans 

i /. , 1 • rri The British 

tor the summer campaign. Ine con- plan for con- 
quest of the state of New York must be York in 

. 1777. 

completed at all hazards ; and to this 
end a threefold system of movements was de- 
vised : — 

Firsts the army in Canada was to advance 
upon Ticonderoga, capture it, and descend the 

; Hudson as far as Albany. This work was now 

I entrusted to General Burgoyne. 

Secondly^ in order to make sure of efficient 
support from the Six Nations and the Tories of 
the frontier, a small force under Colonel Barry 
St. Leger was to go up the St. Lawrence to Lake 
Ontario, land at Oswego, and march down the 
Mohawk valley to reinforce Burgoyne on the 

j Hudson. 

I Thirdly^ after leaving a sufficient force to hold 

I the city of New York, the main army, under Sir 
William Howe, was to ascend the Hudson, cap- 



126 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

ture the forts in the Highlands, and. keep on to 
Albany, so as to effect a junction with Burgojme 
and St. Leger. 

It was thought that such an imposing display 
of military force would make the Tory party su- 
preme in New York, put an end to aU resistance 
there, and effectually cut the United States in 
two. Then if the southern states on the one 
hand and the New England states on the other 
did not hasten to submit, they might afterward 
be attacked separately and subdued. 

In this plan the ministry made the fatal mis- 
take of imderrating the strength of the feeling 
which, from one end of the United States to the 
other, was setting itself every day more and more 
decidedly against the Tories and in favour of 
independence. This feeling grew as fast as the 
anti-slavery feeling grew among the northern peo- 
ple during our Civil War. In 1861 President 
Lincoln thought it necessary to rebuke his gen- 
erals who were too forward in setting free the 
slaves of persons engaged in rebellion against 
the United States. In 1862 he announced his 
purpose to emancipate all such slaves ; and then 
it took less than three years to put an end to slav- 
ery forever. It was just so with the sentiment in 
favour of separation from Great Britain. In July, 
1775, Thomas Jefferson expressly declared that 
the Americans had not raised armies with any in- 
tention of declaring their independence of the 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 127 

mother-country. In July, 1776, the Declaration 
of Independence, written by Jefferson, was pro- 
claimed to the world, though the consent of the 
middle colonies and of South Carolina seemed 
somewhat reluctant. By the summer of 1777 
the Tories were almost everywhere in a hopeless 
minority. Every day of warfare, showing Great 
Britain more and more clearly as an enemy to 
be got rid of, diminished their strength ; so that, 
even in New York and South Carolina, where 
they were strongest, it would not do for the Brit- 
ish ministry to count too much upon any support 
they might give. 

It was natural enough that King George and 
his ministers should fail to understand all this, 
but their mistake was their ruin. If they had 
understood that Burgoyne's march from Lake 
Champlain to the Hudson river was to be a march 
through a country thorouglily hostile, perhaps they 
would not have been so ready to send him on such 
a dangerous expedition. It would have been much 
easier and safer to have sent his army by sea 
to New York, to reinforce Sir WiUiam Howe. 
Threatening movements might have been made 
by some of the Canada forces against Ticonderoga, 
so as to keep Schuyler busy in that quarter ; and 
then the army at New York, thus increased to 
nearly 40,000 men, might have had a fair chance 
of overwhelming Washington by sheer weight of 
numbers. Such a plan might have failed, but it is 



128 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

not likely that it would have led to the surrender 
of the British army. And if they could have 
disposed of Washington, the British might have 
succeeded. It was more necessary for them to get 
rid of him than to march up and down the val- 
ley of the Hudson. But it was not strange that 
they did not see this as we do. It is always easy 
enough to be wise after things have happened. 

Even as it was, if their plan had really been 
followed, they might have succeeded. If Howe's 
army had gone up to meet Burgoyne, the history 
of the year 1777 would have been very different 
from what it was. We shall presently see why 
it did not do so. Let us now recount the fortunes 
jof Burgoyne and St. Leger. 

Burgoyne came up Lake Champlain in June, 
and easily won Ticonderoga, because the Ameri- 
cans had failed to secure a neighbouring position 
Burgoyne wMch Commanded the fortress. Bur- 
derogafjury ^^T^^ ^^^^ Ticoudcroga from Mount 
6,1777. Defiance, just as the Americans would 
have taken Boston from Bunker Hill, if they had 
been able to stay there, just as they afterward did 
take it from Dorchester Heights, and just as 
Howe took New York after he had won Brooklyn 
Heights. When you have secured a position from 
which you can kiU the enemy twice as fast as he 
can kill you, he must of course retire from the 
situation ; and the sooner he goes, the better 
chance he has of living to fight another day. The 






THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 129 

same principle worked in all these cases, and it 
worked with General Howe at Harlem Heights 
and at White Plains. 

When it was known that Burgoyne had taken 
Ticonderoga, there was dreadful dismay in Amer- 
ica p,iid keen disappointment among those Whigs 
in England whose declared sympathies were with 
us. George HI. was beside himself with glee, 
and thought that the Americans were finally de- 
feated and disposed of. But they were all mis- 
taken. The garrison of Ticonderoga had taken 
the alarm and retreated, so that Burgoyne cap- 
tured only an empty fortress. He left 1000 men 
in charge of it, and then pressed on into the wil- 
derness between Lake Champlain and the upper 
waters of the Hudson river. His real danger was 
now beginning to show itself, and every day it 
could be seen more distinctly. He was plunging 
into a forest, far away from all possible support 
from behind, and as he went on he found that 
there were not Tories enough in that part of the 
country to be of any use to him. As Burgoyne 
advanced, General Schuyler prudently retreated, 
and used up the enemy's time by breaking down 
bridges and putting every possible obstacle in his 
way. Schuyler was a rare man, thoroughly disin- 
terested and full of sound sense ; but he had many 
political enemies who were trying to pull him 
down. A large part of his army was made up of 
New England men^ who hated him partly for the 



130 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 



^ 



mere reason tliat he was a New Yorker, and partly 
because as such he had taken part in the long 
quarrel between New York and New Hampshire 
over the possession of the Green Mountains. The 
disaffection toward Schuyler was fomented by 
General Horatio Gates, who had for some time 
held command under him, but was now in Phila- 
schuyier dclpliia currying favour with the dele- 
and Gates, g^tes iu Cougrcss, especially with those 
from New England, in the hope of getting himself 
appointed to the command of the northern army 
in Schuyler's place. Gates was an extremely weak 
man, but so vain that he really believed himself 
equal to the highest command that Congress could 
be persuaded to give him. On the battle-field he 
seems to have been wanting even in personal cour- 
age, as he certainly was in power to handle his 
troops ; but in society he was quite a lion. He 
had a smooth courteous manner and a plausible 
tongue which paid little heed to the difference be- 
tween truth and falsehood. His lies were not very 
ingenious, and so they were often detected and 
pointed out. But while many people were dis- 
gusted by his selfishness and trickery, there were 
always some who insisted that he was a great gen- 
ius. History can point to a good many men like 
General Gates. Such men sometimes shine for 
a while, but sooner or later they always come to 
be recognized as humbugs. 

While Gates was intriguing, Schuyler was do- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 131 

ing all in his power to impede the enemy's prog- 
ress. It was on the night of July 5 that the 
garrison of Ticonderoga, under General St. Clair, 
had abandoned the fortress and retreated south- 
ward. On the 7th a battle was fought 
at Hubbardton between St. Clair's rear, Hubbardton, 
under Seth Warner, and a portion of 
the British army under Fraser and Riedesel. 
Warner was defeated, but only after such an ob- 
stinate resistance as to check the pursuit, so that 
by the 12th St. Clair was able to bring his re- 
treating troops in safety to Fort Edward, where 
they were united with Schuyler's army. Schuyler 
managed his obstructions so well that Burgoyne's 
utmost efforts were required to push into the wil- 
derness at the rate of one mile per day ; and 
meanwhile Schuyler was collecting a force of 
militia in the Green Mountains, under General 
Lincoln, to threaten Burgoyne in the rear and cut 
off his communications with Lake Champlain. 

Burgoyne was accordingly marching into a 
trap, and Schuyler was doing the best that could 
be done. But on the first of August the intrigue 
against him triumphed in Congress, and Gates 
was appointed to supersede him in the command 
of the northern army. Gates, however, did not 
arrive upon the scene until the 19th of August, 
and by that time Burgoyne's situation was evi- 
dently becoming desperate. 

On the last day of July Burgoyne reached Fort 



132 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Edward, wliich Schuyler had evacuated just be- 
fore. Schuyler crossed the Hudson river, and 
continued his retreat to Stillwater, about thirty 
miles above Albany. It was as far as the Ameri- 
can retreat was to go. Burgoyne was already get- 
ting short of provisions, and before he could ad- 
vance much further he needed a fresh supply of 
horses to drag the cannon and stores. He began 
to realize, when too late, that he had come far 
into an enemy's country. The hostile feelings of 
the people were roused to fury by the atrocities 
committed by the Indians employed in Burgoyne's 
army. The British supposed that the savages 
would prove very useful as scouts and guides, and 
that by offers of reward and threats of punish- 
ment they might be restrained from deeds of vio- 
lence. They were very unruly, however, and apt 
to use the tomahawk when they found a chance. 

The sad death of Miss Jane McCrea has been 
described in almost as many ways as there have 
been people to describe it, but no one reaUy 
knows how it happened. What is really known 
Jane Mc- ^^ *^^*5 ^n the 27th of July, while Miss 
crea. McCrca was staying with her friend Mrs. 

McNeil, near Fort Edward, a party of Indians 
burst into the house and carried off both ladies. 
They were pursued by some American soldiers, 
and a few shots were exchanged. In the course 
of the scrimmage the party got scattered, and 
Mrs. McNeil was taken alone to the British camp. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 133 

Next day an Indian came into the camp with Miss 
McCrea's scalp, which her friend recognized from 
its long silky hair. A search was made, and the 
body of the poor girl was found lying near a 
spring, pierced with three bullet-wounds. The 
Indian's story, that she was accidentally killed by 
a volley from the American soldiers, may well 
enough have been true. It is also known that she 
was betrothed to David Jones, a lieutenant in 
Burgoyne's army, and, as her own home was in 
New Jersey, her visit to Mrs. McNeil may very 
likely have been part of a plan for meeting her 
lover. These facts were soon woven into a story, 
in which Jenny was said to have been murdered 
while on her way to her wedding, escorted by a 
party of Indians whom her imprudent lover had 
sent to take charge of her. 

The people of the neighbouring counties, in 
New York and Massachusetts, enraged at the 
death of Miss McCrea and alarmed for the safety 
of their own firesides, began rising in arms. 
Sturdy recruits began marching to join Schuyler 
at Stillwater and Lincoln at Manchester in -the 
Green Mountains. Meanwhile Burgoyne had 
made up his mind to attack the village g^ttie of 
of Bennington, which was Lincoln's ^^^^iC""' 
centre of supplies. By seizing these ^^^^' 
supplies, he could get for himself what he stood 
sorely in need of, while at the same time the loss 
woidd cripple Lincoln and perhaps oblige him to 



134 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

retire from the scene. Accordingly 1000 Ger- 
mans were sent out, in two detachments under 
colonels Baum and Breymann, to capture the vil- 
lage. But instead they were captured themselves. 
Baum was first outmanoeuvred, surrounded, and 
forced to surrender by John Stark, after a hot 
fight, in which Baum was mortally wounded. 
Then Breymann was put to flight and his troops 
dispersed by Seth Warner. Of the whole Ger- 
man force, 207 were killed or wounded, and at 
least 700 captured. Not more than 70 got back 
to the British camp. The American loss in killed 
and wounded was 56. 

This brilliant victory at Bennington had impor- 
tant consequences. It checked Burgoyne's ad- 
vance until he could get his supplies, and it de- 
cided that Lincoln's militia could get in his rear 
and cut off his communications with Ticonderoga. 
It furthermore inspired the Americans with the 
exulting hope that Burgoyne's whole army could 
be surrounded and forced to surrender. 

If, however, the British had been successful in 
gaining the Mohawk valley and ensuring the su- 
premacy over that region for the Tories, the fate 
of Burgoyne might have been averted. The 
Tories in that region, under Sir John Johnson 
and Colonel John Butler, were really formidable. 
As for the Indians of the Iroquois league, they 
had always been friendly to the English and hos- 
tile to the French ; but now, when it came to mak- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 135 

ing their choice between two kinds of English — 
the Americans and the British, they hesitated and 
differed in opinion. The Mohawks took 
Sides with the rJritish because oi the the Mohawk 

valley. 

friendship between Joseph Brant and 
the Johnsons. The Cayugas and Senecas fol- 
lowed on the same side ; but the Onondagas, in 
the centre of the confederacy, remained neutral, 
and the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, under the in- 
fluence of Samuel Kirldand and other mission- 
aries, showed active sympathy with the Americans. 
It turned out, too, that the Whigs were much 
stronger in the valley than had been supposed. 

After St. Leger had landed at Oswego and 
joined hands with his Tory and Indian allies, his 
entire force amounted to about 1700 men. The 
principal obstacle to his progress toward the 
Hudson river was Fort Stanwix, which stood 
where the city of Kome now stands. On the 3d 
of August St. Leger reached Fort Stanwix and 
laid siege to it. The place was garrisoned by 600 
men under Colonel Peter Gansevoort, and the 
Whig yeomanry of the neighbourhood, under the 
heroic General Nicholas Herkimer, were on the 
way to relieve it, to the number of at least 800. 
Herldmer made an excellent plan for surprising 
St. Leger with an attack in the rear, while the 
garrison should sally forth and attack him in 
front. But St. Leger's Indian scouts were more 
nimble than Herkimer's messengers, so that he 



136 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

obtained his information sooner than Gansevoort. 

An ambush was skilfully prepared by Brant in a 

ravine near Oriskany, and there, on the 

Battle of .; ' ' 

oriskany, gth of August, was f ought the most des- 
perate and murderous battle of the 
Revolutionary War. It was a hand to hand fight, 
in which about 800 men were engaged on each 
side, and each lost niore than one-third of its 
number. As the Tories and Indians were giving 
way, their retreat was hastened by the sounds of 
battle from Fort Stanwix, where the garrison was 
making its sally and driving back the besiegers. 
Herkimer remained in possession of the field at 
Oriskany, but his plan had been for the moment 
thwarted, and in the battle he had received a 
wound from which he died. 

Benedict Arnold had lately been sent by Wash- 
ington to be of such assistance as he could to 
Schuyler. Arnold stood high in the confidence of 
both these generals. He had shown himself one 
of the ablest officers in the American army, he 
was especially skilful in getting good work out of 
raw troops, and he was a great favourite with 
his men. On hearing of the danger of Fort Stan- 
wix, Schuyler sent him to the rescue, with 1200 
men. When he was within twenty miles of that 
stronghold, he contrived, with the aid of some 
friendly Oneidas and a Tory captive whose life he 
spared for the purpose, to send on before him ex- 
aggerated reports of the size of his army. The 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 137 

device accomplished far more than he could have 
expected. The obstinate resistance at 
Oriskany had discouraged the Tories flight.Aug. 
and angered the Indians. Distrust and 
dissension were already rife in St. Leger's camp, 
when such reports came in as to lead many to be- 
lieve that Burgoyne had been totally defeated, 
and that the whole of Schuyler's army, or a great 
part of it, was coming up the Mohawk. This 
news led to riot and panic among the troops, and 
on August 22 St. Leger took to flight and made 
his way as best he could to his ships at Oswego, 
with scarcely the shred of an army left. This 
catastrophe showed how sadly mistaken the Brit- 
ish had been in their reliance upon Tory help. 

The battle of Bennington was fought on the 
16th of August. Now by the overthrow of St. 
Leger, six days later, Burgoyne's situation had 
become very alarming. It was just in the midst 
of these events that Gates arrived, on August 
19, and took command of the army at Still- 
water, which was fast growing in numbers. Mi- 
litia were flocking in, Arnold's force was returning, 
and Daniel Morgan was at hand with 500 Virgin- 
ian sharpshooters. Unless Burgoyne could win a 
battle against overwhelming odds, there was only 
one thing that could save him ; and that was the 
arrival of Howe's army at Albany, according to 
the ministry's programme. But Burgoyne had 
not yet heard a word from Howe ; and Howe 
never came. 



138 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

This failure of Howe to cooperate with Bur- 
goyne was no doubt the most fatal military blun- 
der made by the British in the whole course of 
the war. The failure was of course unintentional 
Why Howe ^^ Howc's pai't. He meant to extend 
erate with^^ sufficicut support to Burgoyuc, but the 
Burgoyne. troublc was that he attempted too much. 
He had another plan in his mind at the same 
time, and between the two he ended by accom- 
plishing nothing. While he kept one eye on Al- 
bany, he kept the other on Philadelphia. He 
had not relished being driven back across New 
Jersey by Washington, and the hope of defeating 
that general in battle, and then pushing on to the 
" rebel capital " strongly tempted him. In such 
thoughts he was encouraged by the advice of the 
captive General Lee. That unscrupulous busy- 
body felt himseK in great danger, for he knew 
that the British regarded him in the light of a de- 
serter from their army. While his fate was in 
suspense, he informed the brothers Howe that he 
had abandoned the American cause, and he of- 
fered them his advice and counsel for the summer 
campaign. This villainy of Lee's was not known 
till eighty years afterward, when a paper of his 
was discovered that revealed it in all its black- 
ness. The Howes were sure to pay some heed 
to Lee's opinions, because he was supposed to have 
acquired a thorough knowledge of American af- 
fairs. He advised them to begin by taking Phik 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 13t 

adelphia, and supported this plan by plausible 
arguments. Sir William Howe seems to have 
thought that he could accomplish this early in the 
summer, and then have his hands free for what- 
ever might be needed on the Hudson river. Ac- 
cordingly on the 12th of June he started to cross 
the state of New Jersey with 18,000 men. 

But Sir William had reckoned without his 
host. In a campaign of eighteen days, Washing- 
ton, with only 8000 men, completely blocked the 
way for hinl, and made him give up the game. The 
popular histories do not have much to say about 
these eighteen days, because they were not marked 
by battles. Washinojton won by his 

•^ ... . . Washington's 

marvellous skill in choosing positions masterly 

, -T . . , campaign in 

where Howe could not attack him with New jersey, 

June, 1777. 

any chance of success. Howe under- 
stood this and did not attack. He could not en- 
tice Washington into fighting at a disadvantage, 
and he could not march on and leave such an en- 
emy behind without sacrificing his own communi- 
cations. Accordingly on June 30 he gave up 
his plan and retreated to Staten Island. If there 
ever was a g^eneral who understood the useful art 
of wasting his adversary's time,' Washington was 
that general. 

Howe now decided to take his army to Phila- 
delphia by sea. He waited a while till the news 
from the north seemed to show that Burgoyne 
was carrying everything before him ; and then he 



140 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

thought it safe to start. He left Sir Henry Clin- 
ton in command at New York, with 7000 men, 
telling him to send a small force up the river to 
help Burgoyne, should there be any need of it, 
which did not then seem likely. Then he put to 
sea with his main force of 18,000 men, and went 
around to the Delaware river, which he reached 
at the end of July, just as Burgoyne was reaching 
Fort Edward. 

Howe's next move was very strange. He af- 
terward said that he did not go up the Delaware 
■river, because he found that there were 
st?a!fgemove- obstructious and forts to be passed. 
PhUadeiphia, But hc might have gone up a little way 
Chesapeake and landed his forces on the Delaware 
*^' coast at a point where a single march 

would have brought them to Elkton, at the head 
of Chesapeake bay, about fifty miles southwest 
from Philadelphia. Instead of this, he put out to 
sea again and sailed four hundred miles, to the 
mouth of Chesapeake bay and up that bay to Elk- 
ton, where he landed his men on the 25th of Au- 
gust. Why he took such a roundabout course 
cannot be understood, unless he may have at- 
tached importance to Lee's advice that the pres- 
ence of a British squadron in Chesapeake bay 
would help to arouse the Tories in Maryland. 
The British generals could not seem to make up 
their minds that America was a hostile country. 
Small blame to them, brave fellows that they 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 141 

were ! They could not make war against America 
in such a fierce spirit as that in which France 
would now make war against Germany if she 
could see her way clear to do so. They were al- 
ways counting on American sympathy, and this 
was a will-o'-the-wisp that lured them to destruc- 
tion. 

On landing at Elkton, Howe received orders 
from London, telling him to ascend the Hudson 
river and support Burgoyne, in any event. This 
order had left London in May. It was well for the 
Americans that the telegraph had not then been 
invented. Now it was the 25th of August ; Bur- 
goyne was in imminent peril ; and Howe was 
three hundred miles away from him ! 

All these movements had been carefully watched 
by Washington ; and as Howe marched toward 
Philadelphia he found that general blocking the 
way at the fords of the Brandywine 

•^ -^ Battle of the 

creek. A battle ensued on the 11th of Brandywine, 

Sept. 11, 1777. 

September. It was a well-contested 
battle. With 11,000 men against 18,000, Wash- 
ington could hardly have been expected to win a 
victory. He was driven from the field, but not 
badly defeated. He kept his army well in hand, 
and manoeuvred so skilfidly that the British were 
employed for two weeks in getting over the 
twenty-six miles to Philadelphia. 

Before Howe had reached that city. Congress 
had moved away to York in Pennsylvania. When 



142 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

he had taken Philadelphia, he found that he could 
not stay there without taking the forts on the 
Delaware river which prevented the British ships 
from coming up ; for by land Washington could 
cut off his supplies, and he could only be sure of 
them by water. So Howe detached part of his 
army to reduce these forts, leaving the rest of it 
at Germantown, six miles from Philadelphia. On 
the 4th of October, Washington at- 

Battle of Ger- ' ^ . 

mantown, tackcd thc f orcc at Germantown in such 

Oct. 4, 1777. 

a position that defeat would have quite 
destroyed it. The attempt failed at the critical 
moment because of a dense fog in which one 
American brigade fired into another and caused a 
brief panic. The forts on the Delaware were cap- 
tured after hard fighting, and Washington went 
into winter quarters at Valley Forge. 

The result of the summer's work was that, be- 
cause Howe had made several mistakes and Wash- 
ington had taken the utmost advantage of every 
one of them, the whole British plan was spoiled. 
Howe had used up the whole season in getting to 
Philadelphia, and Washington's activity had also 
kept Sir Henry Clinton's attention so much occu- 
pied with what was going on about the Delaware 
river as to prevent him from sending aid to the 
northward until it was too late. Sir Henry was 
once actually obliged to send reinforcements to 
Howe. 

Thus Burgoyne was left to himself. He sup- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CENTRE. 143 

posed that Howe was coming up the Hudson 
river to meet him, and so on September 13 he 
crossed the river and advanced to attack Gates's 
army, which was occupying a strong position at 
Bemis Heights, between Stillwater and Saratoga. 
It was a desperate move. While Burgoyne was 
making it, Lincoln's men cut his communications 
with Ticonderoga, so that his only hope lay in help 
from below ; and such help never came. In this 
extremity he was obliged to fight on ground 
chosen by the Americans, because he must either 
fight or starve. 

Under these circumstances Burgoyne fought 
two battles with consummate gallantry. The first 
was on September 19, the second on Burgoyne is 
October 7. In each battle the Amer- ^^^tSd 
icans were led by Arnold and Morgan, ^^^'J^'^S'lt 
and Gates deserves no credit for either. ^'^^' 
In both battles Arnold was the leading spirit, and 
in the second he was severely wounded at the mo- 
ment of victory. In the first battle the British 
Vvere simply repidsed, in the second they were 
totally defeated. This settled the fate of Bur- 
goyne, and on the 17th of October he surrendered 
his whole army, now reduced to less than 6000 
men, as prisoners of war. Before the final catas- 
trophe Sir Henry Clinton had sent a small force 
up the river to relieve him, but it was too late. 
The relieving force succeeded in capturing some 
of the Highland forts, but turned back on hear- 
ing of Burgoyne' s surrender. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 

This capture of a British army made more ado 
in Europe than anything which had happened for 
many a day. It was compared to Leuktra and 
the Caudine Fork. The immediate effect in Eng- 
Lord North ^^^^ ^^^ *^ wcakcu the king and cause 
f?oTl\id ^^^^ North to change his policy. The 
iMh tea-duty and the obnoxious acts of 1774 
Feb., 1778. ^^qj-q repealed, the principles of colonial 
independence of Parliament laid down by Otis 
and Henry were admitted, and commissioners were 
sent over to America to negotiate terms of peace. 
It was hoped that by such ample concessions the 
Americans might be so appeased as to be willing 
to adopt some arrangement which would leave 
their country a part of the British Empire. As 
soon as the French government saw the first symp- 
toms of such a change of policy on the part of 
Lord North, it decided to enter into an alliance 
with the United States. There was much sym- 
pathy for the Americans among educated people of 
all grades of society in France ; but the action of 
the government was determined purely by hatred 
of England. While Great Britain and her col- 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 145 

onies were weakening each other by war, France 
had up to this moment not cared to interfere. 
But if there was the slightest chance of a recon- 
ciliation, it was high time to prevent it ; and be- 
sides, the American cause was now prosperous, 
and something might be made of it. The moment 
had come for France to seek revenge for the dis- 
asters of the Seven Years' War ; and on the 6th 
of February, 1778, her treaty of alliance with the 
United States was signed at Paris. 

At the news of this there was an outburst of 
popular excitement in England. There was a 
strong feeling in favour of peace with America 
and war with France, and men of all parties 
united with Lord North himself in demanding that 
Lord Chatham, who represented such a policy, 
should be made prime minister. It was rightly 
believed that he, if any one, coidd both conciliate 
America and humiliate France. There was only 
one way in which Chatham could have broken the 
new alliance which Cons^ress had so lono^ been 
seeking. The faith of Congress was pledged to 
France, and the Americans would no longer hear 
of any terms that did not begin with the acknowl- 
edgment of their full independence. To break 
the alliance, it would have been necessary to con- 
cede the independence of the United States. The 
king felt that if he were now obliged to call Chat- 
ham to the head of affairs and aUow him to form 
a strong ministry, it would be the end of his cher- 



146 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

ished schemes for breaking down cabinet govern- 
ment. There was no man whom George III. 
hated and feared so much as Lord Chatham. Nev- 
. ertheless the pressure was so great that, 

death of })ut for Chatham's untimely death, the 

Lord Chat- ^ -^ ' 

i?°i778^^ king would probably have been obliged 
to yield. If Chatham had lived a year 
longer, the war might have ended with the surren- 
der of Burgoyne instead of continuing until the 
surrender of Cornwallis. As it was, Lord North 
consented, against his own better judgment, to 
remain in office and aid the king's policy as far 
as he could. The commissioners sent to America 
accomplished nothing, because they were not em- 
powered to grant independence ; and so the war 
went on. 

There was a great change, however, in the man- 
ner in which the war was conducted. In the years 
1776 and 1777 the British had pursued a definite 
plan for conquering New York and thus severing 
the connection between New England and the 
southern states. During the remainder of the 
war their only definite plan was for conquering 
the southern states. Their operations at the north 
were for the most part confined to burn- 
the conduct ing and plundering expeditions along 
the coast in their ships, or on the fron- 
tier in connection with Tories and Indians. The 
war thus assumed a more cruel character. This 
was chiefly due to the influence of Lord George 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 147 

Germaine, the secretary of state for the colonies. 
He was a contemptible creature, weak and cruel. 
He had been dismissed from the army in 1759 for 
cowardice at the battle of Minden, and he was so 
generally despised that when in 1782 the king 
was obliged to turn him out of office and tried 
to console him by raising him to the peerage as 
Viscount Sackville, the House of Lords protested • 
against the admission of such a creature. George 
III. had made this man his colonial secretary in 
the autumn of 1775, and he had much to do with 
planning the campaigns of the next two years. 
But now his influence in the cabinet seems to 
have increased. He was much more thoroughly 
in sympathy with the king than Lord North, who 
at this time was really to be pitied. Lord North 
would have been a fine man but for his weakness 
of will. He was now keeping up the war in 
America unwillingly, and was obliged to sanction 
many things of which he did not approve. In 
later years he bitterly repented this weakness. 
Now the truculent policy of Lord George Ger- 
maine began to show itself in the conduct of the 
war. That minister took no pains to conceal his 
willingness to employ Indians, to burn towns and 
villages, and to inflict upon the American people 
as much misery as possible, in the hope of break- 
ing their spirit and tiring them out. 

In America the first effect of Burgoyne's sur- 
render was to strengthen a feeling of dissatisfac- 



148 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

tion with Washington, which had grown up in 
some quarters. In reality, as our narrative has 
shown, Washington had as much to do with the 
overthrow of Burgoyne as anybody ; for if it had 
not been for his skilful campaign in June, 1777, 
Howe would have taken Philadelphia in that 
month, and would then have been free to assist 
Burgoyne. It is easy enough to understand such 
things afterward, but people never can see them 
at the time when they are happening. This is an 
excellent illustration of what was said at the be- 
ginning of this book, that when people are down 
in the midst of events they cannot see the wood 
because of the trees, and it is only when they have 
climbed the hill of history and look back over the 
landscape that they can see what things really 
meant. At the end of the year 1777 people could 
only see that Burgoyne had surrendered to Gates, 
while Washington had lost two battles and the 
city of Philadelphia. Accordingly there were 
many who supposed that Gates must be a better 
general than Washington, and in the army there 
were some discontented spirits that were only 
too glad to take advantage of this feeling. One 
of these malcontents was an Irish adventurer, 
Thomas Conway, who had long served in France 
and came over here in time to take part in the 
battles of Brandywine and Germantown. He had 
a grudge against Washington, as Charles Lee 
had. He thought he could get on better if Wash- 



1 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 149 

mgton were out of the way. So he busied himself 
in organizing a kind of conspiracy against Wash- 
ington, which came to be known as the ^he conway 
" Conway Cabal." The purpose was to ^^^=*^- 
put forward Gates to supersede Washington, as he 
had lately superseded the noble Schuyler. Gates, 
of course, lent himself heartily to the scheme ; 
such intrigues were what he was made for. And 
there were some of our noblest men who were dis- 
satisfied with Washington, because they were ig- 
norant of the military art, and could not under- 
stand his wonderful skill, as Frederick the Great 
did. Among these were John and Samuel Adams, 
who disapproved of " Fabian strategy." Gates 
and Conway tried to work upon such feelings. 
They hoped by thwarting and insulting Washing- 
ton to wound his pride and force him to resign. 
In this wretched work they had altogether too 
much help from Congress, but they failed igno- 
miniously because Gates's lies were too plainly 
discovered. The attempts to injure Washington 
recoiled upon their authors. Never, perhaps, was 
Washinoi:on so g-rand as in that sorrowfid winter 
at Valley Forge. 

When the news of the French alliance arrived, 
in the spring of 1778, there was a general feeling 
of elation. People were over-confident. It seemed 
as if the British might be driven from the coun- 
try in the course of that year. Some changes oc- 
curred in both the opposing armies. A great deal 



150 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

of fault was found in England with Howe and 
Burgoyne. The latter was allowed to go home in 
the spring, and took his seat in Parliament while 
still a prisoner on parole. He was henceforth 
friendly to the Americans, and opposed the fur- 
ther prosecution of the war. Sir William Howe 
resigned his command in May and went home in 
order to defend his conduct. Shortly before his 
appointment to the chief command in America, 
he had uttered a prophecy somewhat notable as 
coming from one who was about to occupy such a 
position. In a speech at Nottingham he had ex- 
pressed the opinion that the Americans could not 
be subdued by any army that Great Britain could 
raise ! 

Howe was succeeded in the chief command by 
Sir Henry Clinton. His brother, Lord 

Howe is su- __ . , . t c , i 

persededby Howc, remained in command oi the 

Clinton. .i i it 

fleet until the autumn, when he was suc- 
ceeded by Admiral Byron. During the winter 
the American army had received a very important 
reinforcement in the person of Baron von Steu- 
ben, an able and higlily educated officer who had 
served on the staff of Frederick the Great. Steu- 
ben was appointed inspector-general and taught 
the soldiers Prussian discipline and tactics until 
the efficiency of the army was more than doubled. 
About the time of Sir William Howe's departure, 
Charles Lee was exchanged, and came back to his 
old place as senior major-general in the Conti- 






THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 151 

nental army. Since his capture there had. been 
a considerable falling off in his reputation, but 
nothing was known of his treasonable proceedings 
with the Howes. Probably no one in the British 
army knew anything about that affair except the 
Howes and their private secretary Sir Henry 
Strachey. Lee saw that the American cause was 
now in the ascendant, and he was as anxious as 
ever to supplant Washington. 

The Americans now assumed the offensive. 
Count d'Estaing was approaching the TheAmeri- 
coast with a powerful French fleet. Soffi^^- 
Should he be able to defeat Lord Howe Slnduct 
and get control of the Delaware river, mo^tT,"june 
the British army in Philadelphia would ^^' ^"^'^'^• 
be in danger of capture. Accordingly on the 
18th of June that city was evacuated by Sir 
Henry Clinton and occupied by Washington. As 
there were not enough transports to take the 
British army around to New York by sea, it was 
necessary to take the more hazardous course of 
marching across New Jersey. Washington pur- 
sued the enemy closely, with the view of forcing 
him to battle in an unfavourable situation and 
dealing him a fatal blow. There was some hojje 
of effecting this, as the two armies were now about 
equal in size — 15,000 in each — and the Ameri- 
cans were in excellent training. The enemy were 
overtaken at Monmouth Court House on the 
morning of June 28, but the attack was unfor- 



152 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

tunately entrusted to Lee, who disobeyed orders 
and made an unnecessary and shameful retreat. 
Washington arrived on the scene in time to turn 
defeat into victory. The British were driven 
from the field, but Lee's misconduct had broken 
the force of the blow which Washington had 
aimed at them. Lee was tried by court-martial 
and at first suspended from command, then ex- 
pelled from the army. It was the end of his 
public career. He died in October, 1782. 

After the battle of Monmouth the British con- 
tinued their march to New York, and Washington 
moved his army to White Plains. Count d'Es- 
taing arrived at Sandy Hook in July with a much 
larger fleet than the British had in the harbour, 
and a land force of 4000 men. It now seemed as 
if Clinton's army might be cooped up and com- 
pelled to surrender, but on examination it ap- 
peared that the largest French ships drew too 
much water to venture to cross the bar. All hope 
of capturing New York was accordingly for the 
present abandoned. 

The enemy, however, had another considerable 
force near at hand, besides Clinton's. Since 
December, 1776, they had occupied the island 
which gives its name to the state of Rhode Island. 
Its position was safe and convenient. It enabled 
them, if they should see fit, to threaten Boston on 
the one hand and the coast of Connecticut on the 
other, and thus to make diversions in aid of Sir 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 153 

Henry Clinton. The force on Rhode Island had 
been increased to 6000 men, under command of 
Sir Robert Pigott. The Americans believed that 
the capture of so large a force, could 
it be effected, would so discouras^e the Newport, 

. Aug. 1777. 

British as to bring the war to an end; 
and in this belief they were very likely right. The 
French fleet accordingly proceeded to Newport ; 
to the 4000 French infantry Washington added 
1500 of the best of his Continentals ; levies of 
New England yeomanry raised the total strength 
to 13,000 ; and the general command of the 
American troops was given to Sidlivan. 

The expedition was poorly managed, and failed 
completely. There was some delay in starting. 
During the first week of August the Americans 
landed upon the island and occupied Butt's Hill. 
The French had begun to land on Conanicut 
when they learned that Lord Howe was approach- 
ing with a powerful fleet. The count then reem- 
barked his men and stood out to sea, manoeuvring 
for a favourable position for battle. Before the 
fight had begun, a terrible storm scattered both 
fleets and damaged them severely. When D'Es- 
taing had got his ships together again, which was 
not till the 20th of August, he insisted upon go- 
ing to Boston for repairs, and took his infantry 
with him. This vexed SuUivan and disgusted 
the yeomanry, who forthwith dispersed and went 
home to look after their crops. General Pigott 



154 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

then tried the offensive, and attacked Sullivan in 
his strong position on Butt's Hill, on the 29th of 
August. The British were defeated, but the next 
day Sullivan learned that Clinton was coming with 
heavy reinforcements, and so he was obliged to 
abandon the enterprise and lose no time in get- 
ting his own troops into a safe position on the 
mainland. In November the French fleet sailed 
for the West Indies, and Clinton was obliged to 
send 5000 men from New York to the same quar- 
ter of the world. 

In the years 1778 and 1779 the warfare on the 
border assumed formidable proportions. The 
Tories of central New York, under the Johnsons 
and Butlers, together with Brant and his Mo- 
hawks, made their headquarters at Fort Niagara, 
from which they struck frequent and terrible 
blows at the exposed settlements on the frontier. 
Early in July, 1778, a force of 1200 men, under 
Wyoming Johu Butlcr, Spread death and desola- 
vauJyljiay tiou through the beautiful valley of 
-Nov., 1778. ^jQj^^ii^g in Pennsylvania. On the 
10th of November, Brant and Walter Butler de- 
stroyed the village of Cherry Valley in New York, 
and massacred the inhabitants. Many other 
dreadful things were done in the course of this 
year ; but the affairs of Wyoming and Cherry 
Valley made a deeper impression than all the rest. 
During the following spring Washington organ- 
ized an expedition of 5000 men, and sent it, under 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 155 

Sullivan, to lay waste the Iroquois country and 
capture the nest of Tory malefactors at Fort Ni- 
agara. While they were slowly advancing through 
the wilderness, Brant sacked the town of Minisink 
and destroyed a force of militia sent against him. 
But on the 29th of August a battle was fought on 
the site of the present town of Elmira, in which 
the Tories and Indians were defeated with great 
slaughter. The American army then marched 
through the country of the Cayugas and Senecas, 
and laid it waste. More than forty Indian vil- 
lages were burned and all the corn was destroyed, 
so that the approach of winter brought famine 
and pestilence. Sullivan was not able to get be- 
yond the Genesee river for want of supplies, and 
so Fort Niagara escaped. The Iroquois league 
had received a blow from which it never recov- 
ered, though for two years more their tomahawks 
were busy on the frontier. 

At intervals during the Revolution there was 
more or less Indian warfare all along the border. 
Settlers were making their way into Kentucky 
and Tennessee. Feuds with these encroaching 
immigrants led the powerful tribe of Cherokees to 
take part with the British, and they made trouble 
enough until they were crushed by John Sevier, 
the "lion of the border." In 1778 Colonel Hamil- 
ton, the British commander at Detroit, attempted 
to stir up all the western tribes to a concerted at- 
tack upon the frontier. When the news of this 



156 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

reached Virginia, an expedition was sent out un- 
conquestof ^^^ George Rogers Clark, a youth of 
westS-n^" twenty-four years, to carry the war into 
i77s^79^' *^^ enemy's country. In an extremely 
interesting and romantic series of move- 
ments, Clark took the posts of Kaskaskia and 
Cahokia, on the Mississippi river, defeated and 
captured Colonel Hamilton at Vincennes, on the 
Wabash, and ended by conquering the whole 
northwestern territory for the state of Virginia. 

The year 1779 saw very little fighting in the 
northern states between the regular armies. The 
British confined themselves chiefly to marauding 
expeditions along the coast, from Martha's Vine- 
yard down to the James river. These incursions 
were marked by cruelties unknown in the earlier 
part of the war. Their chief purpose would seem 
to have been to carry out Lord George Ger- 
maine's idea of harassing the Americans as vexa- 
tiously as possible. But in Connecticut, which 
perhaps suffered the worst, there was a military 
purpose. In July, 1779, an attack was made upon 
New Haven, and the towns of Fairfield and Nor- 
walk were burned. The object was to induce 
Washino:ton to weaken his force on the Hudson 
river by sending away troops to protect the Con- 
necticut towns. Clinton now held the river as 
far up as Stony Point, and he hoped by this diver- 
sion to prepare for an attack upon Washington 
which, if successful, might end in the fall of West 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 157 

Point. If the British could get possession of 
West Point, it would go far toward retrieving the 
disaster which had befallen them at Saratoga. 
Washington's retort was characteristic of him. 
He did, as always, what the enemy did not expect. 
He called Anthony Wayne and asked storming of 
him if he thought he could carry Stony !i?;^?5^"^"'' 
Point by storm. Wayne replied that ^'^^* 
he could storm a very much hotter place than any 
known in terrestrial geography, if Washington 
would plan the attack. Plan and performance 
were equally good. At midnight of July 15 the 
fort was surprised and carried in a superb assaidt 
with bayonets, without the firing of a gun on the 
American side. It was one of the most brilliant 
assaults in all military history. It instantly re- 
lieved Connecticut, but Washington did not think 
it prudent to retain the fortress. The works 
were aU destroyed, and the garrison, with the 
cannon and stores, withdrawn. The American 
army was as much as possible concentrated about 
West Point. In the general situation of affairs 
on the Hudson there was but little change for the 
next two years. 

It may seem strange that so little was done in 
all this time. But, in fact, both England and the 
United States were getting exhausted, so far as 
the a^bility to carry on war was concerned. 

As regards England, the action of France had 
seriously complicated the situation. England had 



158 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

now to protect her colonies and dependencies on 
the Mediterranean, in Africa, in Hindustan, and 
How England in the Wcst Indics. In 1779 Spain 
ened and dcclarcd war against her, in the hope of 

hampered, . . r^ •! i i i t-<-i • i 

1778-81. regaining (jibraltar and the Hondas. 

For three years Gibraltar was besieged by the 
allied French and Spanish forces. A Spanish 
fleet laid siege to Pensacola. France strove to 
regain the places which England had formerly 
won from her in Senegambia. War broke out in 
India with the Mahrattas, and with Hyder Ali of 
Mysore, and it required all the genius of Warren 
Hastings to save England's empire in Asia. We 
have already seen how Clinton, in the autumn of 
1778, was obliged to weaken his force in New 
York by sending 5,000 men to the West Indies. 
Before the end of 1779 there were 314,000 British 
troops on duty in various parts of the world, but 
not enough could be spared for service in New 
York to defeat Washington's little army of 15,000. 
We thus begin to realize what a great event was 
the surrender of Burgoyne. The loss of 6,000 
men by England was not in itself irreparable ; 
but in leading to the intervention of France it 
was like the touching of a spring or the drawing 
of a bolt which sets in motion a vast system of 
machinery. 

Under these circumstances George III. tried to 
form an alliance with Russia, and offered the 
island of Minorca as an inducement. Russia de- 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 159 

clined tlie offer, and such action as she took was 
hostile to England. It had formerly been held 
that the merchant ships of neutral nations, em- 
ployed in trade with nations at war, might law- 
fully be overhauled and searched by war ships of 
either of the belligerent nations, and their goods 
confiscated. England still held this doctrine and 
acted upon it. But during the eighteenth century 
her maritime power had increased to such an ex- 
tent that she could damage other nations in this 
way much more than they could damage her. 
Other nations accordingly began to maintain that 
goods carried in neutral ships ought to be free 
from seizure. Early in 1780 Denmark, Sweden, 
and Russia entered into an agreement known as 
the Armed Neutrality, by which they pledged 
themselves to unite in retaliating upon England 
whenever any of her cruisers should molest any 
of their ships. This league was a new source of 
danger to England, because it entailed the risk of 
war with Russia. 

During these years several bold American cruis- 
ers had made the stars and stripes a familiar sight 
in European waters. The most famous of these 
cruisers, Paul Jones, made his name a pauuones, 
terror upon the coasts of England, ^^'^• 
burned the ships in a port of Cumberland, sailed 
into the Frith of Forth and threatened Edinburgh, 
and finally captured two British war vessels off 
Flamborough Head, in one of the most desperate 
sea-fights on record. , 



160 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Paul Jones was a regularly commissioned cap- 
tain in the American navy, but because the British 
did not recognize Congress as a legal body they 
called him a pirate. When he took his prizes 
into a port in Holland, they requested the Dutch 
government to surrender him into their hands, as 
if he were a mere criminal to be tried at the Old 
Bailey. But the Dutch let him stay in port ten 
weeks and then depart in peace. This caused 
much irritation, and as there was also perpetual 
quarrelling over the plunder of Dutch ships by 
British cruisers, the two nations went to war in 
December, 1780. One of England's reasons for 
entering into this war was the desire to capture 
St. Eustatius, *^^ little Dutch island of St. Eustatius 
Feb., 1781. jj^ ^]^g West Indies. An immense trade 
was carried on there between Holland and the 
United States, and it was believed that the stop- 
page of this trade would be a staggering blow to 
the Americans. It was captured in February, 
1781, by Admiral Rodney, private property was 
seized to the amount of more than twenty mil- 
lion doUars, and the inhabitants were treated with 
shameful brutality. 

As England was thus fighting single-handed 
against France, Spain, Holland, and the United 
States, while the attitude of aU the neutral powers 
was unfriendly, we can find no difficulty in un- 
derstanding the weakness of her military oper- 
ations in some quarters. The United States, on 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE, 161 

the other hand, found it hard to carry on the war 
for very different reasons. In the first 
place the country was really weak. The Americans 
military strength of the American Union ened and 
in 1780 was inferior to that of Hoi- The want of 
land, and about on a level with that of 
Denmark or Portugal. But furthermore the want 
of union made it hard to bring out such strength 
as there was. In the autumn of 1777 the Articles 
of Confederation were submitted to the several 
states for adoption ; but the spring of 1781 had 
arrived before all the thirteen states had ratified 
them. These articles left the Continental Con- 
gress just what it was before, a mere advisory 
body, without power to enlist soldiers or levy 
taxes, without federal courts or federal officials, 
and with no executive head to the government. 
As we have already seen, the only way in which 
Congress could get money from the people was by 
requisitions upon the states, by ashing the state- 
governments for it. This was always a very slow 
way to get money, and now the states were unusu- 
ally poor. There was very little accumulated cap- 
ital. Farming, fishing, ship-building, and foreign 
trade were the chief occupations. Farms and 
plantations suffered considerably from the absence 
of their owners in the army, and many were kept 
from enlisting, because it was out of the question 
to go and leave their families to starve. As for 
ship-building, fishing, and foreign trade, these 



162 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

occupations were almost annihilated by British 
cruisers. No doubt the heaviest blows that we 
received were thus dealt us on the water. 

The people were so poor that the states found 
it hard to collect enough revenue for their own 
purposes, and most of them had a way of issuing 
paper money of their own, which made things 
still worse. Under such circumstances they had 
very little money to give to Congress. It was 
necessary to borrow of France, or Spain, or Hol- 
land, and by the time these nations were all at 
war, that became very difficidt. From the begin- 
ning of the war Congress had issued paper notes, 
and in 1778 the depreciation in their value was 
already alarming. But as soon as the exultation 
over Burgoyne's surrender had subsided, as soon 
as the hope of speedily driving out the British 
had been disappointed, people soon lost all con- 
fidence in the power of Congress to pay its notes, 
Fall of the ^^^ ^^ 1779 their value began falling 
cu;" - with frightful rapidity. In 1780 they 
rconune'"' bccamc wortlilcss. It took 1150 in Con- 
tinental currency to buy a bushel of 
corn, and an ordinary suit of clothes cost '$2000. 
Then people refused to take it, and resorted to 
barter, taking their pay in sheep or ploughs, in 
jugs of rum or kegs of salt pork, or whatever they 
could get. It thus became almost impossible either 
to pay soldiers, or to clothe and feed them prop- 
erly and supply them with powder and ball. We 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 163 

thus see why the Americans, as well as the British, 
conducted the war so languidly that for two years 
after the storming of Stony Point their main 
armies sat and faced each other by the Hudson 
river, without any movements of importance. 

In one quarter, however, the British began to 
make rapid progress. They possessed the Flori- 
das, having got them from Spain by the treaty of 
1763. Next them lay Georgia, the weakest of the 
thirteen states, and then came the Carolinas, with 
a strong Tory element in the population. For 
such reasons, after the great invasion of New 
York had failed, the British tried the plan of 
starting at the southern extremity of the Union 
and lopping off one state after another. In the 
autumn of 1778 General Prevost advanced from 
East Florida, and in a brief campaign succeeded 
in capturing Savannah, Sunbury, and Augusta. 
General Lincoln, who had won distinction in the 
Saratoga campaign, was appointed to command 
the American forces in the South. He sent General 
Ashe, with 1500 men, to threaten Au- ^he British 
gusta. At Ashe's approach, the British ^^^^l, 
abandoned the town and retreated to- ^^^^* 
ward Savannah. Ashe pursued too closely and 
at Briar Creek, March 3, 1779, the enemy turned 
upon him and routed him. The Americans lost 
nearly 1000 men killed, wounded, and captured, 
besides their cannon and small arms ; and this 
victory cost the British only 16 men killed and 



164 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

wounded. Augusta was reoccupied, the royal 
governor, Sir James Wright, was reinstated in 
office, and the machinery of government which 
had been in operation previous to 1776 was re- 
stored. Lincoln now advanced upon August^, 
but Prevost foiled him by returning the offensive 
and marching upon Charleston. In order to pro- 
tect that city, Lincoln was obliged to retrace his 
steps. It was now the middle of May, and little 
more was done till September, when D'Estaing 
returned from the West Indies. On the 23d Sa- 
vannah was invested by the combined forces of 
Lincoln and D'Estaing, and the siege was vigor- 
ously carried on for a fortnight. Then the French 
admiral grew impatient. On the 9th of October 
a fierce assault was made, in which the allies were 
defeated with the loss of 1000 men, including the 
gallant Pulaski. The French fleet then departed, 
and the British could look upon Georgia as re- 
covered. 

It was South Carolina's turn next. Washing- 
ton was obliged to weaken his own force by send- 
ing most of the southern troops to Lincoln's as- 
sistance. Sir Henry Clinton then withdrew the 
garrisons from his advanced posts on the Hudson, 
and also from Rhode Island, and was thus able 
to leave an adequate force in New York, while he 
himself set sail for Savannah, December 26, 1779, 
with a considerable army. After the British 
forces were united in Georgia, they amounted to 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 165 

more than 13,000 men, against whom Lincoln 
could bring but 7000. The fate of the American 
army shows us what would probably have hap- 
pened in New York in 1776 if an ordinary gen- 
eral instead of Washington had been in command. 
Lincoln allowed himself to be cooped up 
in Charleston, and after a siege of two Charleston, 

with Lin- 
months was oblio^ed to surrender the coin's army, 

11 1 ^ o 1 r. ^^y 12' 1^^- 

city and his whole army on the 12th of 
May, 1780. This was the most serious disaster 
the Americans had suffered since the loss of Fort 
Washington. The dashing cavalry leader, Tarle- 
ton, soon cut to pieces whatever remnants of their 
army were left in South Carolina. Sir Henry 
Clinton returned in June to New York, leaving 
Lord Cornwallis with 5000 men to carry on the 
work. The Tories, thus supported, got the upper- 
hand in the interior of the state, which suffered 
from all the horrors of civil war. The American 
cause was sustained only by partisan leaders, of 
whom the most famous were Francis Marion and 
Thomas Sumter. 

When the news of Lincoln's surrender reached 
the North, the emergency was felt to be desperate. 
A fresh army was raised, consisting of about 2000 
superbly trained veterans of the Maryland and 
Delaware lines, under the Baron de Kalb, and 
such militia as could be raised in Virginia and 
North Carolina. The chief command was given 
to Gates, whose conduct from the start was a se- 



166 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

ries of blunders. The most important strategic 
point in South Carolina was Camden, at 

Battle of ^ , . . . , 

Camden, Aug. the intersection of the principal roads 

16, 1780. ^ ^ 

from the coast to the mountains and 
from north to south. In marching upon this 
point Gates was met by Lord Cornwallis on the 
16th of August and utterly routed. Kalb was 
mortally wounded at the head of the Maryland. 
troops, who held their ground nobly till over- 
whelmed by numbers ; the Delaware men were 
cut to pieces ; the militia were swept away in 
flight, and Gates with them. His northern lau- 
rels, as it was said, had changed into southern 
willows ; and for the second time within three 
months an American army at the South had been 
annihilated. 

This was, on the whole, the darkest moment of 
the war. For a moment in July there had been 
a glimmer of hopefulness when the Count de 
Hochambeau arrived with 6000 men who were 
landed on Ehode Island. The British fleet, how- 
ever, soon came and blockaded them there, and 
again the hearts of the people were sickened with 
hope deferred. It seemed as if Lord George Ger- 
maine's policy of " tiring the Americans out " 
might be going to succeed afte¥ all. When the 
value of the Continental paper money now fell to 
zero, it was a fair indication that the people had 
pretty much lost all faith in Congress. In the 
army the cases of desertion to the British lines 
averaged about a hundred per month. 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 167 

This was a time when a man of bold and im- 
pulsive temperament, j)rone to cherish romantic 
schemes, smarting under an accumulation of in- 
juries, and weak in moral principle, might easily 
take it into his head that the American cause was 
lost, and that he had better carve out a new ca- 
reer for himself, while wi-eaking vengeance on his 
enemies. Such seems to have been the case with 
Benedict Arnold. He had a great and Benedict Ar- 
well-earned reputation for skill and soifjui/-^^ 
bravery. His military services up to ^p*'^^^^- 
the time of Burgoyne's surrender had been of 
priceless value, and he had always stood high in 
Washington's favour. But he had a genius for 
getting into quarrels, and there seem always to 
have been people who doubted his moral sound- 
ness. At the same time he had good reason to 
complain of the treatment which he received from 
Congress. The j^arty hostile to Washington 
sometimes liked to strike at him in the persons of 
his favourite generals, and such admirable men 
as Greene and Morgan had to bear the brunt of 
this ill feeling. Early in 1777 five brigadier gen- 
erals junior to Arnold in rank and vastly inferior 
to him in ability and reputation had been pro- 
moted over him to the grade of major-general. 
On this occasion he had shown an excellent spirit, 
and when sent by Washington to the aid of 
Schuyler, he had signified his willingness to serA^e 
under St. Clair and Lincoln, two of the juniors 



168 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

who had been raised above him. Ai-nold was a 
warm friend to Schuyler, and perhaps did not 
take enough pains to conceal his poor opinion of 
Gates. Other officers in the northern army let it 
plainly be seen that they placed more confidence in 
Arnold than in Gates, and the residt was a bitter 
quarrel between the two generals, echoes of which 
were probably afterwards heard in Congress. 

If Arnold's wound on the field of Saratoga 
had been a mortal wound, he would have been 
ranked, among the military heroes of the Revolu- 
tion, next to Washington and Greene. Perhaps, 
however, in a far worse sense than is commonly 
conveyed by the term, it proved to be his death- 
wound, for it led to his being placed in command 
of Philadelphia. He was assigned to that position 
because his wounded leg made him unfit for active 
service. Congress had restored him to his rela- 
tive rank, but now he soon got into trouble with 
the state government of Pennsylvania. It is not 
easy to determine how much ground there may 
have been for the charges brought against him 
early in 1779 by the state government. One of 
them concerned his personal honesty, the others 
were so trivial in character as to make the whole 
affair look somewhat like a case of persecution. 
They were twice investigated, once by a commit- 
tee of Congress and once by a court-martial. On 
the serious charge, which affected his pecuniary 
integrity, he was acquitted ; on two of the trivial 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 169 

charges, of imprudence in the use of some public 
wagons, and of carelessness in granting a pass for 
a ship, he was convicted and sentenced to be rep- 
rimanded. The language in which Washington 
couched the reprimand showed his feeling that 
Arnold was too harshly dealt with. 

If the matter had stopped here, posterity would 
probably have shared Washington's feeling. But 
the government of Pennsylvania must have had 
stronger grounds for distrust of Arnold than it 
was able to put into the form of definite charges. 
Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia he fell in 
love with a beautiful Tory lady, to whom he was 
presently married. He was thus thrown much 
into the society of Tories and was no doubt influ- 
enced by their views. He had for some time con- 
sidered himself ill-treated, and at first thought of 
leaving the service and settling upon a grant of 
land in western New York. Then, as the charges 
against him were pressed and his anger increased, 
he seems to have dallied with the notion of going 
over to the British. At length in the early sum- 
mer of 1780, after the reprimand, his treasonable 
purpose seems to have taken definite shape. As 
General Monk in 1660 decided that the only way 
to restore peace in England was to desert the 
cause of the Commonwealth and bring back 
Charles XL, so Arnold seems now to have thought 
that the cause of American independence was 
ruined, and that the best prospect for a career for 



170 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

himself lay in deserting it and helping to bring 
back the rule of George III. In this period of 
general depression, when even the unconquerable 
Washington said " I have almost ceased to hope," 
one staggering blow would be very likely to end 
the struggle. There could be no heavier blow 
than the loss of the Hudson river, and with base- 
ness almost incredible Arnold asked for the com- 
mand of West Point, with the intention of betray- 
ing it into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton. The 
depth of his villainy on this occasion makes it 
probable that there were good grounds for the sus- 
picions with which some people had for a long time 
regarded him, although Washington, by putting 
him in command of the most important position 
in the country, showed that his own confidence in 
him was unabated. The successful execution of 
the plot seemed to call for a personal interview 
between Arnold and Clinton's adjutant-general, 
Major John Andre, who was entrusted with the 
negotiation. Such a secret interview was ex- 
tremely difficult to bring about, but it was effected 
on the 21st of September, 1780. After a mar- 
vellous chapter of accidents, Andre was captured 
just before reaching the British lines. But for 
his hasty and quite unnecessary confession that 
he was a British officer, which led to his being 
searched, the plot would in all probability have 
been successful. The papers found on his per- 
son, which left no room for doubt as to the nature 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 171 

of the black scheme, were sent to Washington ; 
the principal traitor, forewarned just in the nick 
of time, escaped to the British at New York ; and 
Major Andre was condemned as a spy and hanged 
on the 2d of October. 

Only five days after the execution of Andre an 
event occurred at the South which greatly relieved 
the prevailing gloom of the situation. It was the 
first of a series of victories which were soon to 
show that the darkness of 1780 was the darkness 
that comes before dawn. After liis victory at 
Camden, Lord C(^nwallis found it necessary to 
give his army some rest from the intense August 
heat. In September he advanced into North 
Carolina, boasting that he would soon conquer all 
the states south of the Susquehanna river. But 
his line of march now lay far inland, and the 
British armies were never able to accomplish 
much except in the neighbourhood of their ships, 
where they could be reasonably sure of supj^lies. 
In traversing Mecklenburg county Cornwallis 
soon found himself in a very hostile and danger- 
ous region, where there were no Tories to befriend 
him. One of his best partisan commanders. Major 
Ferguson, penetrated too far into the Battle of 
mountains. The backwoodsmen of Ten- Mountain, 
nessee and Kentucky, the Carolinas, and ^^^' ^' ^^^' 
western Virginia were aroused ; and under their 
superb partisan leaders — Shelby, Sevier, Cleave- 
land, McDowell, Campbell, and WiUiams — gave 



172 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

chase to Ferguson, who took refuge upon what he 
deemed an impregnable position on the top of 
King's Mountain. On the 7th of October the 
backwoodsmen stormed the mountain, Ferguson 
was shot through the heart, 400 of his men were 
killed and wounded, and all the rest, 700 in num- 
ber, surrendered at discretion. The Americans 
lost 28 killed and 60 wounded. There were some 
points in this battle, which remind one of the 
British defeat at Majuba Hill in southern Africa 
in 1881. 

In the series of events which led to the surren- 
der of Cornwallis, the battle of King's Mountain 
played a part similar to that played by the battle 
of Bennington in the series of events which led to 
the surrender of Burgoyne. It was the enemy's 
first serious disaster, and its immediate result was 
to check his progress until the Americans could 
muster strength enough to overthrow him. The 
events, however, were much more complicated in 
Cornwallis's case, and took much longer to unfold 
themselves. Burgoyne surrendered within nine 
anxious weeks after Bennington ; CornwaUis 
maintained himself, sometimes with fair hopes of 
final victory, for a whole year after King's Moun- 
tain. 

As soon as he heard the news of the disaster 
he fell back to Winnsborough, in South Carolina, 
and called for reinforcements. While they were 
arriving, the American army, recruited and reor- 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 173 

ganized since its crusliing defeat at Camden, ad- 
vanced into Mecklenburg county. Gates 
was superseded by Greene, who arrived command in 

upon the scene on the Aa oi December, lina, Dec. 2, 

... I'^so. 

Under Greene were three Virginians 

of remarkable ability, — Daniel Morgan ; William 

Washington, who was a distant cousin of the 

commander-in-chief ; and Henry Lee, familiarly 

known as " Light-horse Harry," father of the 

great general, Robert Edward Lee. The little 

army numbered only 2000 men, but a considerable 

part of them were disciplined veterans fully a 

match for the British infantry. 

In order to raise troops in Virginia to increase 
this little force, Steuben was sent down to that 
state. In order to interfere with such recruiting, 
and to make diversions in aid of Cornwallis, de- 
tachments from the British army were also sent 
by sea from New York to Virginia. The first of 
these detachments, under General Leslie, had 
been obliged to keej) on to South Carolina, to 
make good the loss inflicted upon Cornwallis at 
King's Mountain. To replace Leslie in Virginia, 
the traitor Arnold was sent down from New York. 
The presence of these subsidiary forces in Vir- 
ginia was soon to influence in a decisive way the 
course of events. 

Greene, on reaching South Carolina, acted with 
boldness and originality. He divided his little 
army into two bodies, one of which cooperated 



174 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

with Marion's partisans in the northeastern part 
of the state, and threatened CornwaUis's commu- 
nications with the coast. The other body he sent 
under Morgan to the southwestward, to threaten 
the inland posts and their garrisons. Thus wor- 
ried on both flanks, Cornwallis presently divided 
his own force, sending Tarletonwith 1100 men, to 
Battle of the disposc of Morgan. Tarleton came up 
Jrnr with Morgan on the 17th of January, 
1781. 1781, at a grazing-ground known as the 

Cowpens, not far from King's Mountain. The 
battle which ensued was well fought, and on Mor- 
gan's part it was a wonderful piece of tactics. 
With only 900 men in oj)en field he surrounded 
and nearly* annihilated a superior force. The 
British lost 230 in killed and wounded, 600 pris- 
oners, and all their guns. Tarleton escaped with 
270 men. The Americans lost 12 killed and 61 
wounded. 

The two battles. King's Mountain and the Cow- 
pens, deprived Cornwallis of nearly all his light- 
armed troops, and he was just entering upon a 
game where swiftness was especially required. It 
was his object to intercept Morgan and defeat 
him before he could effect a junction with the 
other part of the American army. It was Greene's 
object to march the two parts of his army in con- 
verging directions northward across North Caro- 
lina and unite them in spite of Cornwallis. By 
moving in this direction Greene was always get- 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 175 

ting nearer to his reinforcements from Virginia, 
while Cornwallis was always getting further from 
his supports in South Carolina. It was brilliant 
strategy on Greene's part, and entirely successful. 
Cornwallis had to throw away a great deal of his 
baggage and otherwise weaken himself, but in 
spite of all he coidd do, he was outmarched. The 
two wings of the American army came g^ttig ^^ 
together and were joined by the rein- March'^is, 
forcements ; so that at GuiKord Court ^^^^' 
House, on the 15th of March, Cornwallis found 
himself obliged to fight against heavy odds, two 
hundred miles from the coast and almost as far 
from the nearest point in South Carolina at which 
he could get support. 

The battle of Guilford was admirably managed 
by both commanders and stubbornly fought by the 
troops. At nightfall the British held the field, 
with the loss of nearly one third of their number, 
and the Americans were repulsed. But Corn- 
wallis coidd not stay in such a place, and could 
not afford to risk another battle. There was 
nothing for him to do but retreat to Wilmington, 
the nearest point on the coast. There he stopped 
and pondered. 

His own force was sadly depleted, but he knew 
that Arnold in Virg^inia was bein^ heav- 

* Ar 1 mi Cornwallis 

ily remforced from New York. The retreats into 

Virginia. 

only safe course seemed to march north- 
ward and join in the operations in Virginia ; then 



176 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

afterwards to return southward. This course 
Cornwallis pursued, arriving at Petersburg and 
taking command of the troops there on the 20th 
of May. 

Meanwhile Greene, after pursuing Cornwallis 
for about fifty miles from GuiKord, faced about 
and marched with all speed upon Camden, a hun- 
dred and sixty miles distant. Whatever his ad- 
versary might do, he was now going to seize the 
great prize of the campaign, and break the 
enemy's hold upon South Carolina. Lord Raw- 
don held Camden. Greene stopped at Hobkirk's 
Hill, two miles to the north, and sent Marion 
and Lee to take Fort Watson, and thus cut the 
enemy's communications with the coast. On 
April 23 Fort Watson surrendered ; on the 25th 
Eawdon defeated Greene at Hobkirk's Hill, but 
as his communications were cut, the victory did 

him no good. He was obliged to re- 
camden, treat toward the coast, and Greene took 

Camden on the 10th of May. Having 
thus obtained the commanding point, Greene 
went on until he had reduced every one of the in- 
Battie of land posts. At last on the 8th of Sep- 
springs, tember he fought an obstinate battle at 
Sept. 8, 1781. j^^t^^ Springs, in which both sides 
claimed the victory. The facts were that he drove 
the British from their first position, but they ral- 
lied upon a second position from which he failed 
to drive them. Here, however, as always after 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 177 

one of Gre3ne's battles, it was the enemy who re- 
treated and he who pursued. His strategy never 
faiied. After Eutaw Springs the British remained 
shut up in Charleston under cover of their ships, 
and the American government was reestablished 
over South Carolina. Among all the campaigns 
in history that have been conducted with small 
armies, there have been few, if any, more brilliant 
than Greene's. 

There was something especially piquant in the 
way in which after Guilford he left Cornwallis 
to himself. It reminds one of a chess-player who 
first gets the queen off the board, where she can 
do no harm, and then wins the game against the 
smaller pieces. As for Cornwallis, when 
he reached Petersburg, May 20, he com'^vairis^'in 
found himself at the head of 5000 men. Maf-sept., 

1781 

Arnold had just been recalled to New 
York, and Lafayette, who had been sent down to 
oppose him, was at Richmond with 3000 men. A 
campaign of nine weeks ensued, in the first part 
of which Cornwallis tried to catch Lafayette and 
bring him to battle. The general movement was 
from Richmond up to Fredericksburg, then over 
toward Charlottesville, then back to the James 
river, then do^vn the north bank of the river. 
But during the last part the tables were turned, 
and it was Lafayette, reinforced by Wayne and 
Steuben, that pursued Cornwallis on his retreat to 
the coast. At the end of July the British general 



178 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

reached Yorktown, where he was iv nforced and 
waited with 7000 men. 

We may now change our simile, and liken Corn- 
wallis to a ball between two bats. The first b;i1b, 
which had knocked him up into Virginia, was 
Greene ; the second, which sent him quite out of 
the game, was Washington. The remarkable 
movement which the latter general now proceeded 
to execute would have been impossible without 
French cooperation. A French fleet of overwhelm- 
ing power, under the Count de Grasse, was ap- 
_ proaching Chesapeake bay. Washine:- 

Washington's . ^. ^ . "^ ° 

masterly tou, lu rcadincss for it, had first moved 

movement. 

Rochambeau's army from Rhode Island 
across Connecticut to the Hudson river. Then, 
as soon as all the elements of the situation were 
disclosed, he left part of his force in position on 
the Hudson, and in a superb march led the rest 
flown to Virginia. Sir Henry Clinton at New 
York was completely hoodwinked. He feared that 
the real aim of the French fleet was New York, 
in which case it would be natural that an Amer- 
ican land-force should meet it at Staten island. 
Now a glance at the map of New Jersey will 
show that Washington's army, starting from West 
Point, could march more than half the way toward 
Philadelphia and still be supposed to be aiming at 
Staten island. Washington was a master hand 
for secrecy. When his movement was first dis- 
closed, his own generals, as well as Sir Henry 



THE FUENCH ALLIANCE. 179 

Clinton, took it for granted that Staten island 
was the point aimed at. It was not until he had 
passed Philadelphia that Clinton began to surmise 
that he might be going down to Virginia. 

When this fact at length dawned upon the Brit- 
ish commander, he made a futile attempt at a diver- 
sion by sending Benedict Arnold to attack New 
London. It was as weak as the act of a drowning 
man who catches at a straw. Arnold's expedition, 
cruel and useless as it was, crowned his infamy. 
A sad plight for a man of his power ! If he had 
only had more strengt) i of character, he might now 
have been marching with his old friend Washing- 
ton to victory. With this wretched affair at New 
London, the brilliant and wicked Benedict Arnold 
disappears from American history. He died in 
London, in 1801, a broken-hearted and penitent 
man, as his grandchildren tell us, praying God 
with his last breath to forgive his awful crime. 

Washington's march was so swift and so cun- 
ningly planned that nothing could check it. On 
the 26th of September the situation was complete. 
Washington had added his force to that of La- 
fayette, so that 16,000 men blockaded Cornwallis 
apon the Yorktown peninsula. The great French 
fleet, commanding the waters about Chesapeake 
bay, closed in behind and prevented su„ender of 
escape. It was a very unusual thing for 5oSS^! ^* 
the French thus to get control of the ^'*- ^^' ^^^^• 
"^vater and defy the British on their own element. It 



180 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

was Washington's unwearied vigilance that, after 
waiting long for such a chance, had seized it with- 
out a moment's delay. As soon as Cornwallis was 
thus caught between a hostile army and a hostile 
fleet, the problem was solved. On the 19th of 
October the British army surrendered. Washing- 
ton presently marched his army back to the Hud- 
son and made his headquarters at Newburgh. ^ 

When Lord North at his office in London heard 
the dismal news, he walked up and down the room, 
wringing his hands and crying, " O God, it is all 
over ! " York town was indeed decisive. In the 
course of the winter the British lost Georgia. 
The embers of Indian warfare still smouldered on 
the border, but the great War for Independence 
was really at an end. The king's friends 
George iii.'s had for somc time been losing strength 
schemes, in Enp'land, and Yorktown completed 

May 1784 

* their defeat. In March, 1782, Lord 
North's ministry resigned. A succession of short- 
lived ministries followed ; first, Lord Rocking- 
ham's, until July, 1782 ; then Lord Shelburne's, 
until February, 1783 ; then, after five weeks with- 
out a government, there came into power the 
strange Coalition between Fox and North, from 
April to December. During these two yeats the 
king was trying to intrigue with one interest 
against another so as to maintain his own personal 
government. With this end in view he tried the 
bold experiment of dismissing the Coalition and 



THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 181 

making the young William Pitt prime minister, 
without a majority in Parliament. After a fierce 
constitutional struggle, which lasted all winter, 
Pitt dissolved Parliament, and in the new election 
in May, 1784, obtained the greatest majority ever 
given to an English minister. But the victory 
was Pitt's and the people's, not the king's. This 
election of 1784 overthrew all the cherished plans 
of George III. in pursuance of which he had 
driven the American colonies into rebellion. It 
established cabinet government more firmly than 
ever, so that for the next seventeen years the real 
ruler of Great Britain was William Pitt. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

BIRTH OF THE NATION. 

The year 1782 was marked by great victories 
for the British in the West Indies and at Gib- 
raltar. But they did not alter the situation in 
America. The treaty of peace by which 
peace, 1782- Great Britain acknowledged the inde- 
pendence of the United States was made 
under Lord Shelburne's ministry in the autumn 
of 1782, and adopted and signed by the Coalition 
on the 3d of September, 1783. The negotiations 
were carried on at Paris by Franklin, Jay, and 
John Adams, on the part of the Americans ; and 
they won a diplomatic victory in securing for the 
United States the country between the Alleghany 
mountains and the Mississippi river. This was 
done against the wishes of the French govern- 
ment, which did not wish to see the United States 
become too powerful. At the same time Spain 
recovered Minorca and the Floridas. France got 
very little except the satisfaction of having helped 
in diminishing the British empire. 

The return of peace did not bring contentment 
to the Americans. Because Congress had no 
means of raising a revenue or enforcing its de- 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 183 

crees, it was unable to make itself respected either 
at home or abroad. For want of pay the army- 
became very troublesome. In January, 1781, there 
had been a mutiny of Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey troops which at one moment 

, , 't . T ,1 • p Troubles with 

looked very serious. In the spring- oi the army, 

1781—83 

1782 some of the officers, disgusted with 
the want of efficiency in the government, seem to 
have entertained a scheme for making Washing- 
ton king; but Washington met the suggestion 
with a stern rebuke. In March, 1783, inflammar- 
tory appeals were made to the officers at the head- 
quarters of the army at Newburgh. It seems to 
have been intended that the army should overawe 
Congress and seize upon the government until the 
delinquent states should contribute the money 
needed for satisfying the soldiers and other public 
creditors. Gates either originated this scheme or 
willingly lent himself to it, but an eloquent speech 
from Washington prevailed upon the officers to 
reject and condemn it. 

On the 19th of April, 1783, the eighth anni- 
versary of Lexington, the cessation of hostilities 
was formally proclaimed, and the soldiers were 
allowed to go home on furloughs. The army was 
virtually disbanded. There were some who thought 
that this ought not to be done while the British 
forces still remained in New York ; but Congress 
was afraid of the army and quite ready to see it 
scattered. On the 21st of June Congress was 



184 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

driven from Philadelphia by a small band of 
drunken soldiers clamorous for pay. It was im- 
possible for Congress to get money. Of the Con- 
tinental taxes assessed in 1783, only one fifth part 
had been paid by the middle of 1785. After 
peace was made, France had no longer any end to 
gain by lending us money, and European bankers, 
as well as European governments, regarded Amer- 
ican credit as dead. 

There was a double provision of the treaty which 

could not be carried out because of the weakness 

of Congress. It had been agreed that Congress 

should request the state governments to 

able to fulfil repeal various laws which they had made 

the treaty. „ . . r. • i 

from time to time confiscating the prop- 
erty of Tories and hindering the collection of 
private debts due from American to British mer- 
chants. Congress did make such a request, but it 
was not heeded. The laws hindering the payment 
of debts were not repealed ; and as for the Tories, 
they were so badly treated that between 1783 and 
1785 more than 100,000 left the country. Those 
from the southern states went mostly to Florida 
and the Bahamas ; those from the north made 
the beginnings of the Canadian states of Ontario 
and New Brunswick. A good many of them were 
reimbursed for their losses by Parliament. 

When the British government saw that these 
provisions of the treaty were not fulfilled, it re- 
taliated by refusing to withdraw its troops from 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 185 

the northern and western frontier posts. The 
British army sailed from Charleston on ^^^^^ Britain 
the 14th of December, 1782, and from ^feSfng 
New York on the 25th of November, Snttof 
1783, but in contravention of the treaty ^^^IflZng 
small garrisons remained at Ogdens- *^®^**^^^- 
burgh, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, 
and Mackinaw until the 1st of June, 1796. Be- 
sides this, laws were passed which bore very se- 
verely upon American commerce, and the Amer- 
icans found it impossible to retaliate because the 
different states would not agree upon any com- 
mercial policy in common. On the other hand, 
the states began making commercial war upon 
each other, with navigation laws and high tariffs. 
Such laws were passed by New York to interfere 
with the trade of Connecticut, and the merchants 
of the latter state began to hold meetings and 
pass resolutions forbidding all trade whatever with 
New York. 

The old quarrels about territory were kept up, 
and in 1784 the troubles in Wyoming and in the 
Green Movmtains came to the very verge of civil 
war. People in Europe, hearing of such things, 
believed that the Union would soon fall to pieces 
and become the prey of foreign powers. It was 
disorder and calamity of this sort that such men 
as Hutchinson had feared, in case the control of 
Great Britain over the colonies should cease. 
George III. looked upon it all with satisfaction, 



186 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

and believed that before long the states would 
one after another become repentant and beg to be 
taken back into the British empire. 

The troubles reached their climax in 1786. Be- 
cause there seemed to be no other way of getting 
money, the different states besran to issue 

The craze for . . *^ 

paper money their promissorv uotcs, and then tried 

and the Shays ^ i i i 

rebeuion, to compel people by law to receive such 
notes as money. There was a strong 
"paper money" party in all the states except 
Connecticut and Delaware. The most serious 
trouble was in Ehode Island and Massachusetts. 
In both states the farmers had been much im- 
poverished by the war. Many farms were mort- 
gaged, and now and then one was sold to satisfy 
creditors. The farmers accordingly clamoured for 
paper money, but the merchants in towns like 
Boston or Providence, understanding more about 
commerce, were opposed to any such miserable 
makeshifts. In Rhode Island the farmers pre- 
vailed. Paper money was issued, and harsh laws 
were passed against all who should refuse to take 
it at its face value. The merchants refused, and 
in the towns nearly all business was stopped dur- 
ing the summer of 1786. 

In the Massachusetts legislature the paper 
money party was defeated. There was a great 
outcry among the farmers against merchants and 
lawyers, and some were heard to maintain that 
the time had come for wiping out all debts. In 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 187 

August, 1786, the malcontents rose in rebellion, 
headed by one Daniel Shays, who had been a cap- 
tain in the Continental army. They began by 
trying to prevent the courts from sitting, and 
went on to burn barns, plunder houses, and attack 
the arsenal at Springfield. The state troops were 
called out, under General Lincoln, two or three 
skirmishes were fought, in which a few lives were 
lost, and at length in February, 1787, the insur- 
rection was suppressed. 

At that time the mouth of the Mississippi river 
and the country on its western bank belonged to 
Spain. Kentucky and Tennessee were rapidly be- 
coming settled by people from Virginia 

_ _ ° , ^ T. 1 1 T The Missis. 

and JNorth Carolina, and these settlers sippiques- 

. r r\ m tion, 1786. 

wished to trade with New Orleans. The 
Spanish government was unfriendly and wished to 
prevent such traffic. The people of New Eng- 
land felt little interest in the southwestern country 
or the Mississippi river, but were very anxious to 
make a commercial treaty with Spain. The gov- 
ernment of Spain refused to make such a treaty 
except on condition that American vessels should 
not be allowed to descend the Mississippi river 
below the mouth of the Yazoo. When Congress 
seemed on the point of yielding to this demand, 
the southern states were very angry. The New 
England states were equally angry at what they 
called the obstinacy of the South, and threats of 
secession were heard on both sides. 



188 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 

Perhaps the only thing that kept the Union 
from falling to pieces in 1786 was the Northwest- 
ern Territory, which George Rogers Clark had 
conquered in 1779, and which skilful diplomacy 
had enabled us to keep when the treaty was drawn 
up in 1782. Virginia claimed this territory and 
actually held it, but New York, Massachusetts, 
and Connecticut also had claims upon it. It was 
the idea of Maryland that such a vast region 
ought not to be added to any one state, or divided 
between two or three of the states, but ought to 
The north- ^® *^^ commou property of the Union, 
rito^Tthe Maryland had refused to ratify the Ar- 
domSn/''"^^ tides of Confederation until the four 
1780-87. states that claimed the northwestern 
territory should yield their claims to the United 
States. This was done between 1780 and 1785, 
and thus for the first time the United States gov- 
ernment was put in possession of valuable prop- 
erty which could be made to yield an income and 
pay debts. This piece of property was about the 
first thing in which all the American people were 
alike interested, after they had won their inde- 
pendence. It could be opened to immigration and 
made to pay the whole cost of the war and much 
more. During these troubled years Congress was 
busy with plans for organizing this territory, 
which at length resulted in the famous Ordinance 
of 1787 laying down fundamental laws for the 
government of what has since developed into the 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 189 

five great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan, and Wisconsin, While other questions 
tended to break up the Union, the questions that 
arose in connection with this work tended to hold 
it together. 

The need for easy means of communication be- 
tween the old Atlantic states and this new coun- 
try behind the mountains led to schemes which 
ripened in course of time into the construction of 
the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie canals. 
In discussing such schemes, Maryland and Vir- 
ginia found it necessary to agree upon some kind 
of commercial policy to be pursued by both states. 
Then it was thought best to seize the occasion for 
calling a general convention of the states to de- 
cide upon a uniform system of regular 
tions for commerce. This convention tionatAn- 
was held at Annapolis in September, Sept. li, 
1786, but only five states had sent del- 
egates, and so the convention adjourned after 
adopting an address written by Alexander Ham- 
ilton, calling for another convention to meet at 
Philadelphia on the second Monday of the follow- 
ing May, "to devise such further provisions as 
shall appear necessary to render the constitution 
of the federal government adequate to the exigen- 
cies of the Union." 

The Shays rebellion and the quarrel about the 
Mississippi river had by this time alarmed people 
so that it began to be generally admitted that the 



190 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

federal government must be in some way strength- 
ened. If there were any doubt as to this> it was 
removed by the action of New York. An amend- 
ment to the Articles of Confederation had been 
proposed, giving Congress the power of levying 
customs-duties and appointing the collectors. By 
the summer of 1786 all the states except New 
York had consented to this. But in order to 
amend the articles, unanimous consent was neces- 
sary, and in February, 1787, New York's refusal 
defeated the amendment. Congress was thus 
left without any immediate means of raising a 
revenue, and it became quite clear that something 
must be done without delay. 

The famous Federal Convention met at Phila- 
delphia in May, 1787, and remained in session 
four months, with Washington presiding. Its 
work was the framing of the government under 
which we are now living, and in which 
conventioiT tlic cvils of the old Confederation have 
phia, May- bccu avoided. The trouble had all the 
^^ * " while been how to get the whole Ameri- 
can people represented in some body that could 
thus rightfully tax the whole American people. 
This was the question which the Albany Congress 
had tried to settle in 1754, and which the Federal 
Convention did settle in 1787. 

In the old confederation, starting with the Con- 
tinental Congress in 1774, the government was all 
vested in a single body which represented states, 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 191 

but did not represent individual persons. It was 
for that reason that it was called a congress rather 
than a parliament. It was more like a congress 
of European states than the legislative body of a 
nation, such as the English parliament was. It 
had no executive and no judiciary. It could not 
tax, and it could not enforce its decrees. 

The new constitution changed all this by creat- 
ing the House of Representatives which ^he new 
stood in the same relation to the whole f^ Xcrtha 
American people as the legislative as- Sarc^nsum. 
sembly of each single state to the people °'^*^'^' ^^^^' 
of that state. In this body the people were repre- 
sented, and could therefore tax themselves. At 
the same time in the Senate the old equality be- 
tween the states was preserved. All control over 
commerce, currency, and finance was lodged in 
this new Congress, and absolute free trade was 
established between the states. In the office of 
President a strong executive was created. And 
besides all this there was a system of federal 
courts for deciding questions arising under fed- 
eral laws. Most remarkable of aU, in some re- 
spects, was the power given to the federal Su- 
preme Court, of deciding, in special cases, whether 
laws passed by the several states, or by Congress 
itself, were conformable to the Federal Constitu- 
tion. 

Many men of great and various powers played 
important parts in effecting this change of gov- 



192 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

ernment which at length established the American 
Union in such a form that it could endure ; but 
the three who stood foremost in the work were 
George Washington, James Madison, and Alex- 
ander Hamilton. Two other men, whose most 
important work came somewhat later, must be 
mentioned along with these, for the sake of com- 
pleteness. It was John Marshall, chief justice of 
the United States from 1801 to 1835, whose pro- 
found decisions did more than those of any later 
judge could ever do toward establishing the sense 
in which the Constitution must be understood. 
It was Thomas Jefferson, president of the United 
States from 1801 to 1809, whose sound democratic 
instincts and robust political philosophy prevented 
the federal government from becoming too closely 
allied with the interests of particular classes, and 
helped to make it what it should be, — a " govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the 
people." In the making of the government under 
which we live, these five names — Washington, 
Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall — 
stand before all others. I mention them here 
chronologically, in the order of the times at which 
their influence was felt at its maximum. 

When the work of the Federal Convention was 
sanctioned by the Continental Congress and laid 
before the people of the several states, to be rati- 
fied by special conventions in each state, thei*e was 
earnest and sometimes bitter discussion. Many 



BIRTH OF THE NATION. 193 

people feared that the new government would 
soon degenerate into a tyranny. But the century 
and a half of American history that had already 
olapsed had afforded such noble political training 
for the people that the discussion was, on the 
whole, more reasonable and more fruitful than 
any that had ever before been undertaken by so 
many men. The result was the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution, followed by the inaugura^ 
tion of Creorge Washington, on the 30th of April, 
1789, as President of the United States. And 
with this event our brief story may fitly end. 



COLLATERAL READING. 



The following' books may be recommended to the reader 
who wishes to get a general idea of the American Revolu- 
tion ; — 

1. General Works. By far the most interesting and 
readable account is given by Irving in his Life of Wash- 
ingtoriy vol^ i.-iv. I have abridged and condensed these 
four octavos into one stout duodecimo entitled Washington 
and his Country, Boston, Ginn & Co., 1887. Our young 
friends may find Frothingham's Rise of the Republic rather 
close reading, but one can hardly name a book that will 
more richly reward them for their study, Greene's His^ 
iorical View of the Revolution should be read by every one. 
Carrington's Battles of the Revolution makes the military 
operations quite clear with numerous maps. Very young 
readers find it interesting to begin with Coffin's Boys of 
Seventy-Six. The social life of the time is admirably por- 
trayed in Scudder's Men and Manners in America One Hun- 
dred Years Ago. See also Thornton's Pulpit of the Revolu- 
tion. Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution — two royal 
octavos profusely illustrated — is an excellent book to 
browse in. 

2. Biographies. Tyler's Patrick Henry, Tudor's Otis, 
Hosmer's Samuel Adams, Morse's John Adams, Frothing- 
ham's Warren, Quincy's Josiah Quincy, Barton's Franklin 
and Jeffersony Fonblanque's Burgoyne, Lossing's Schuyler, 
Riedesel's Memoirs, Stone's Brant, Arnold's Arnold, Sar- 
gent's Andre\ Kapp's Steuben and Kalb, Greene's Greene, 



196 COLLATERAL READING. 

Amory*s Sullivan^ Graham's Morgan, Simms's Marion^ 
Abbott's Paul Jones, John Adams's Letters to his Wife, 
Morse's Hamilton, Gay's Madison, Roosevelt's Gouverneur 
Morris, Russell's Fox, Albemarle's Rochinyham, Fitzmau- 
rice's Shelburne, MacKnight's Burke, Macaulay's essay on 
Chatham. 

3. Fiction. Cooper's Chainbearer, Miss Sedgwick's 
Linwoods, Paulding's Old Continental, Mrs. Child's Rebels, 
Motley's Morton's Hope. There is an account of the battle 
of Bunker Hill in Cooper's Lionel Lincoln. Thompson's 
Green Mountain Boys gives interesting descriptions of many 
of the events in that region. The border warfare is treated 
in Grace Greenwood's Forest Tragedy and Hoffman's Grey- 
slaer. Simms's Partisan and Mellichampe deal with events 
in South Carolina in 1780, and later events are covered in 
his Scout, Katharine Walford, Woodcraft, Forayers, and 
Eutaw. See also Miss Sedgwick's Walter Thornley, and 
Cooper's Pilot and Spy. 

For further references, see Justin Winsor's Reader^ 
Handbook of the American Revolution, a book which is ab- 
solutely indispensable to every one who wishes to study the 
subject. 



INDEX. 



Adams, John, 46, 84, 88, 89, 98, 100, 
113, 149, 182. 

Adams, Samuel, 53, 58, 68, 71, 72, 73, 
75, 78, 82, 84, 85, 88, 107, 149. 

Aix-la-ChapeUe, treaty of, 6. 

Albany Congress, 34, 190. 

Albany Plan, 35. 

Algonquins, 28-30, 37. 

Alleghany mountains, 27. 

Allen, Ethan, 87. 

Andre, John, 170, 171. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, 22. 

Annapolis convention, 189. 

Antislavery feeling, 126. 

Armada, the Invincible, 6. 

Armed Neutrality, 159. 

Army, continental, 88, 124 ; dis- 
banded, 183. 

Arnold, Benedict, 87, 93, 94, 118, 136, 
137, 143, 167-171, 173, 175, 177, 
179. 

Ashe, Samuel, 163. 

Attucks, Crispus, 75. 

Augusta, Ga., 163. 

Bacon's rebellion, 21. 

Baltimore, Congress flees to, 118. 

Barons' War, 19. 

Barr<5, Isaac, 69, 75. 

Barter, 102. 

Baum, Col., 134, 

Berais Heights, 143. 

Bennington, 133, 134, 137, 172. 

Berkeley, Sir W., 21. 

Bernard, Sir F., 68, 72. 

Boston, 7, 44-47 ; " Massacre," 72- 

75 ; " Tea Party," 79-83 ; Port Bill, 

83 ; siege of, 87-94. 
Braddock, Edward, 36. 
Brandywine, 141. 
Brant, Joseph, 108, 135, 136, 154, 

155. 
Breymann, Col., 134. 
Briar Creek, 163. 
Brooklyn Heights, 111-113, 128. 
Bunker Hill, 91, 128. 
Burgoyne, John, 90, 125-134, 137, 

140-143, 148, 150, 158, 172. 



Burlington, N. J., 120. 
Burke, Edmund, 62, 69. 
Butler, Col. John, 134, 154. 
Butt's Hill, 154. 
Byron, Admiral, 150. 

Cahokia, 156, 

Calvert family, 13. 

Camden, Lord, 69. 

Camden, S. C, 166, 171, 17S, 176. 

Campbell, Col. William, 171. 

Canada, invasion of, 93, 94. 

Canals, 189. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, 93, 94, 109, 115, 

118. 
Carlisle, Pa., 26. 
Carr, Dabney, 79. 
Castle WiUiam, 73, 75. 
Caudine Fork, 144. 
Cavaliers, 9. 

Cavendish, Lord John, 69. 
Charles II., 22, 43, 45. 
Charleston, S. C, 80, 165. 
Charlestown, Mass., 86. 
Chase, Samuel, 84. 
Cherry Valley, 154. 
Choiseul, Duke de, 38. 
Clark, George Rogers, 156, 188. 
Cleaveland, Col., 171. 
Cleveland, Grover, 1. 
Clinton, Sir H., 90, 90, 140, 142, 150- 

152, 156-158, 164, 165, 178, 179. 
Coalition ministry, 180. 
Cobden, Richard, 61. 
Colonial trade, 42-44. p^i 

Committees of correspondence > 
Commons, House of, 19, 58-61. 
Concord, 85, 86. 
Congress, Continental, 79, 84, 87-90, 

100-103, 106, 115-117, 161, 162, 183, 

184, 191. 
Congress, Stamp Act, 56. 
Connecticut, 13, 21, 23, 77, 98, 156. 
Conway, Henry, G9. 
Conway Cabal, 148, 149. 
Cornwallis, Lord, 104, 121, 122, 165, 

171-180. 
Cowpens, 174. 



198 



INDEX. 



Cromwell, Oliver, 9. 

Crown Point, 87. 

Currency, Continental, 162, 166. 

Deane, Silas, 123. 

Declaration of Independence, 97-103, 

127. 
Declaratory Act, 58. 
Delaware, 9, 10. 
Delaware river, 142. 
Denmark, 159. 
Desertions, 166. 
D'Estaing, Count, 151-154, 164. 
Dickinson, John, 84, 92, 98, 101, 102. 
Discovery, French doctr»ne of, 27. 
Dorchester Heights, 94, 128. 
Duumore, Lord, 95. 

" Early " American history, 5. 
Edinburgh, 159. 
Elkton, 140, 141. 
Elmira, 155. 
Eutaw Springs, 176. 

Fairfield, Conn., 156. 

Federal convention, 190, 191. 

Ferguson, Major, 171, 172. 

Five Nations, 29. 

Flamborough Head, 159. 

Fort Duquesne, 33; Edward, 131, 
132, 140; Lee, 114-llG; Moultrie, 
105 ; Necessity, 33 ; Niagara, 154, 
155; Stanwix, 135-137; Washing- 
ton, 114.-117, 165 ; WatsoD, 176. 

Ports on the Delaware, 141. 

Pox, Charles, 69, 180. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 34, 54, «9, 113, 
123, 182. 

iFranklin, William, 106. 

Fraser, Gen., 131. 

Frederick the Great, 150 

French power in Canada, 10, 20, 26- 
38. 

Frontenac, Count, 29. 

Frontier between English and French 
colonies, 26. 

Ga^ ,, Thomas, 39, 83, 85, 91, 92. 

Gansevoort, Peter, 135. 

Gaspee, schooner, 77. 

Gates, Horatio, 39, 90, 130, 131, 137, 
143, 148, 165, 166, 168, 173. 

George III., his character and 
schemes, 59-71, 146 ; glee over 
news from Ticonderoga, 129 ; tries 
to make an alliance with Russia, 
158, 159 ; his schemes overthrown, 
180, 181. 

Georgia, 11, 96, 163. 

Germaine, Lord George, 147, 156, 
166. 

fl^ermantown, 141. 



Gib-M.a-, 158, 182. \ 

Glaa.tone, W. E., 61. . 

Governments of the colonies, 13-1 G. I 
Grasse, Count de, 178. • 

Green Mountains, 77, 87, 131, 185. 
Greene, Nathanael, 90, 115, 110, 1G7, 

173-177. i 

Grenville, George, 41, 49, 51, 54, \ 

124. 1 

Gridley, Jeremiah, 46. 
GuUford Court House, 175, 177. \ 

Hackensack, 115, 116. 

Hale, Nathan, 114. 

Hamilton, commandant at Detroit 

155. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 189, 192. 
Hancock, John, 86, 87, 89. 
Harlem Heights, 114, 129. 
Harrison, Benjamin, 6. 
Hastings, Warren, 158. 
Heath, William, 90, 115. 
Henry VIIL, 59. 

Henry, Patrick, 48, 55, 58, 84, 144. 
Herkimer, Nicholas, 135, 136. 
Hessian troops, 93. 
Hobkirk's Hill, 176. 

Holland and Great Britain, 160. \ 

Hopkins, Stephen, 77. 
Howe, Richard, Lord, 105, 106, 113, / 

150, 153. '1 

Howe, Sir WiUiam, 39, 90, 94, 104, ' I 

105, 112-118, 125, 127, 137-143, 148, 1 

150. 
Hubbardton, 131. 
Hudson river, 95, 115, 128, 157, ' 
Hutchinson, Thomas, 46, 56, "^ -o, 

77, 78, 81, 83, 107, 185. 
Hyder, Ali, 158. 

Impost amendment defeated by New 

York, 190. 
Indian tribes, 27, 28. 
Iroquois, 28, 29. 

Jay, John, 92, 182. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 55, 89, 100, 103. 

126, 127, 192. 
Jeffreys, George, 17. 
Johnson, Sir John, 108, 134. 
Johnson, Sir William, 108. 
Johnson Hall, 26, 108. 
Jones, David, 133. 
Jones, Paul, 159, 160. 

Kalb, John, 38, 123, 165, 166. 

Kaska&kia, 156. 

Kentucky, 155, 171, 187. 

King's friends, 64, 69, 84. 

King's Mountain, 171, 172, 174. I 

Kirkland, Samuel, 135. 

Kosciuszko, Thaddeus, 123. 



INDEX. 



199 



Latayette, 123, 177. 

Land Bank, 20. 

Lee, Arthur, 123. 

Lee, Charles, 89, 105, 117-119, 122, 

138, 140, 148, 150-152. 
Lee, Henry, 173. 
Lee, Richard Henry, 84, 97, 100. 
Lee, Robert Edward, 173. 
Leslie, Gen., 173. 
Leuktra, 144. 
Lexington, 86, 183. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 126. 
Lincoln, Benjamin, 131, 134, 143, 

163-165, 167, 187. 
Livingston, Robert, 84, 98. 
Long House, 28, 29. 
Long Island, battle of, 112. 
Lords proprietary, 13. 
Louis XV., 31. 

Macaulay, Lord, 49. 

McCrea, Jane, 132, 133. 

McDowell, Col., 171. 

Mclfeil, Mrs., 132, 133. 

Madison, James, 192. 

Mahratta war, 158. 

Majuba Hill, 172. 

Manchester, Vt., 133. 

Marion, Francis, 165, 174. 

Marshall, John, 192. 

Martha's Vineyard, 156. 

Martin, Josiah, 96. 

Maryland, 8, 99, 140, 188. 

Massachusetts, 21, 22, 68, 71, 72, 83, 

97, 107. , 

Mecklenburg county, N. C, 95, 171, 

173. 
Minden, 147, 
Minisink 155. 
Minorca, , '8, 182. 
Mississippi valley, 182, 187. 
Mobilians, 27. 
Molasses Act, 49-51, 67. 
Monk, Gen., 169, 
Monmouth, 151, 152. 
Montgomery, Richard, 90, 93, 94. 
Morgan, Daniel, 93, 94, 137, 143, 167, 

173, 174. 
Morris, Robert, 102, 120. 
Morristown, 119, 122, 123. 
Moultrie, William, 105. 

New England colonies, 6-8. 

New Hampshire, 76, 98. 

New Haven, 156. 

New Jersey, 11, 99. 

New Whigs, 60-62, 69. 

New York, 9, 66, 76, 80, 100, 108, 

125, 143, 190. 
Newburgh, 180, 183. 
Norfolk, Va., 95. 
North, Lord, 66, 76, 144-147, 180. 



North Carolina, 11, 77, 96, 171-175. 

Northcastle, 115. 

Northwestern Territory, 188, 

JS unification of the Regulating Act, 

85.. 
Norwalk, 156. 

Ohio, 189. 

Ohio Company, 32, 

Old Sarum, 59. 

Old South church, 53, 72, 82. 

Old Whigs, 59-64, 69. 

Otis, James, 45-47, 62, 72, 74, 144. 

Paper money, 20, 162, 186. 

Parker, Sir Peter, 96, 104. 

Parsons' Cause, 47, 48, 

Paxton, Charles, 44. 

Pendleton, Edmund, 84, 

Penn family, 14. 

Pennsylvania, 11, 13, 77, 99, 102. 

Pensacola, 158. 

Periods in history, 4. 

Petersburg, Va., 177. 

Petition (last) to the king, 92, 

Petty William (Earl of Shelbume), 

61, 69, 180, 182. 
Philadelphia, 80, 84, 138-142, 151, 

168, 183. 
Pigott, Sir Robert, 153. 
Pitt, William (Earl of Chatham), 

57, 61, 62, 64, 06, 69, 71, 84, 145, 

146. 
Pitt, William, the younger, 61, 181. 
Pontiac's war, 38, 41. 
Pownall, Thomas, 14. 
Preston, Capt., 74. 
Prevost, Gen.. 163, 164. 
Princeton, 120, 121. 
Proprietary government, 13. 
Protectionist legislation, 43, 50. 
Pulaski, Casimir, 123, 164. 
Putnam, Israel, 39, 87, 90, 112, 115. 

Rawdon, Lord, 176. 

Reform, parliamentary, 61-63. 

Regulating Act, 83, 85 ; repealed, 

144. 
Representation in England, 58-61, 
Requisitions, 31, 54, 161, 
Retaliatory acts, 83 ; repealed, 144. 
Revere, Paul, 4, 86. 
Rhode Island, 13, 21, 23, 76, 77, 96, 

153, 154, 164, 166, 186, 
Riedesel, Gen,, 131. 
Riots in Boston, 56. 
Rochambeau, Count, 166, 178. 
Rockingham, Lord, 57, 64, 180. 
Rodney, Caesar, 102, 
Rodney, George, 160, 
Rotten boroughs, 59, 62. 
Royal governors, 14-18. 



200 



INDEX. 

4 



Russell, Lord John, 61. 
Russell, Lord "William, 17. 
Russia, 159. 

Rutledge, Edward, 113. 
Rutledge, John, 84. 

St. Clair, Arthur, 131, 1G7. 

St. Eustatius, 160. 

St. Leger, Barry, 125, 126, 135- 137. 

Salaries, 15-18, 65-68. 

Savaimah, 163, 164. 

Savile, Sir George, 69. 

Schuyler, Philip, 90, 109, 119, 129- 
133, 136. 

Secession, threats of, 187. 

Senegambia, 158. 

Sevier, John, 155, 171. 

Shays rebellion, 186. 

Shelburne, Lord, 61, 69, 180, 182. 

Shelby, Isaac, 171. 

Shirley, William, 52. 

Sidney, Algernon, 17. 

Silver bank, 20. 

Six Nations, 29, 34, 93, 125. 

Snyder, Christopher, 74. 

Sons of Liberty, 57. 
' South Carolina, 90, 102, 104, 105, 127, 
173-177. 

Spain declares war with Great Brit- 
ain, 158. 

Spanish possessions in North Amer- 
ica, 37, 158, 182. 

Spotswood, Alexander, 14. 

Stamp Act, 4, 41, 52, 58, 124. 

Stark, John, 39, 87, 134. 

Staten Island, 109, 117, 122, 139, 178. 

Steuben, Baron, 123, 150, 173, 177. 

Stillwater, 132. 

Stirling, William Alexander, called 
Lord, 112. 

Stony Point, 156, 157, 163. 

Strachey, Sir Henry, 151. 

Stuart Kings, 17, 60. 

Suffolk resolves, 85. 

Sullivan, John, 90, 112, 153-155. 

Sumter, Thomas, 165. 

Sunbury, 163. 

Supreme court, 191. 

Sweden, 159. 

Tarleton, Banastre, 165, 174. 

Taxation, 16-20, 31, 52-54, 62. 

Tea Party, Boston, 4, 79-83. 

Tennessee, 1.55, 171, 187. 

Throg's Neck, 114. 

Ticonderoga, 87, 118, 125, 127, 128, 
131, 134, 143. 

Tories, 12, 60, 93, 126, 154, 155, 163, 
184. 

Town meetings, 7, 53. 

Townshend Acts, 64-68, 76, 78 ; re- 
pealed, 144. 



^reaty of peace, 182. ^ , 
Tuscaroras, 29. -\ " 



^«> 



Union, want of, 34, 77, 161, 162, 182 
191. 

Valcour, Island, 118. 
Venango, 33. 
Vincennes, 156. 

Virginia, 8, 21, 24, 47, 48, 76, 79, 96 
97, 173. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 31. 

War expenses, 30-32, 36, 40, 41. 

Ward, Artemas, 90, 117. 

Warner, Seth, 87, 131, 134. 

Warren, Joseph, 85, 86. 

Washington, George, 1,4, 5, 39, 55 
his mission to Venango, 33 ; sur- 
renders Fort Necessity, 33 ; in Vir- 
ginia legislature, 76 ; in the Conti- 
nent ongress, 84 ; appointed to 
com. ^d the army, 88 ; not yet in 
favour of independence, 89 ; takes 
command at Cambridge, 92 ; takes 
Boston, 94 ; addressed by Lord 
Howe, 106 ; his character as gen- 
eral and statesman, 110, 111 ; with 
draws" his army from Brooklyn 
Heights, 113 ; masterly campaign 
in New York and New Jersey 
114-122 ; endeavours to secure aii 
efficient regular army, 123-125 ; 
campaign of June, 1777, in New 
Jersey, 1^9 ; Brandy wine and Ger- 
mantown, 141, 142 ; intrigues of 
his enemies, 148, 149 ; Monmouth, 
151, 152; sends a force against the jlj 
Iroquois, 154, 155; Stony Point, ■ 
156, 157 ; his favourite generals 
often ill used by Congress, 167 ; his 
superb march and capture of York- 
town, 178-180 ; scheme for making 
him king, 183 ; elected first presi- 
dent of the United States, 193. 

Washington, William, 173. 

Wayne, Anthony, 157, 177. 

Webster, Daniel, 101. 

West Point, 115, 117, 157, 170. ] 

Western frontier posts, 185. \ 

White Plains, 115, 129. , 

Wildcat banks, 20. 

William III., 45. i 

Williams, James, 171. ; 

Wilson, James, 98. \ 

Winchester, Va., 26. 

Winnsborough, S. C, 172. 

Wright, Sir James, 164. 

Writs of assistance, 44-47. 

Wyoming, 77, 154, 185. 

Yorktown, 178-180. 



. 



